Rewrite the Stars
by fangirlwriting
Summary: Soulmate AU. Phineas Flynn and Isabella both have varying feelings about soulmates before they meet each other in their sophomore year of high school. Phineas isn't quite sure how he feels about it, and Isabella is ecstatic. However, when the two meet, they click instantly, and it soon begins to show that they like each other. Only one problem. They aren't soulmates.
1. Chapter 1

_No one can rewrite the stars_

 _How can you say you'll be mine?_

 _Everything keeps us apart_

 _And I'm not the one you were meant to find_

 _-Rewrite the Stars, The Greatest Showman_

 **Prologue**

Isabella had known who she would marry since she had learned how to read. It had been on her arm since birth. _Taylor Turner._ Geez, his parents must have hated him. Or her. It had never really mattered to Isabella, honestly. As long as there was someone.

Soulmates had been there as far back as humans knew. A first and last name was on your wrist when you were born, and when you were ready, you began to search the world to find them. It was usually a trip set aside for after college— that was when Isabella's mother had met her father.

Her soulmate also had her name on their arm too, obviously. It's not like she would be thrown in front of all the Taylor Turners in the world and told to take her best pick.

Her mother had told Isabella many times that she should slow down. This was preordained, so it would happen. She had nothing to worry about. But Isabella had still filled up many a notebook for school with 'Isabella Turner' doodled in the margins. She had decided from a very young age what kind of wedding she wanted to have. It would be big and dramatic, an outdoor wedding of course, the kind that people stopped to look at and said: 'Aw. One more perfect couple in the world.'

And if you didn't marry your soulmate… well, she didn't know. You always did. She'd never really heard of anyone doing anything else.

So that left only one question.

Who the _hell_ was Phineas Flynn?


	2. Chapter 2

When she'd first met Phineas, she hadn't really thought anything of it. He had been this kid who had moved to Danville with his family during her sophomore year. Sure, he was nice, and cute enough. Okay, really cute.

But what did she care? She already had her whole life planned out.

But… for just a second, her gaze had followed him in the hallway.

"Hey," she whispered to her best friend, Katie. "Who's that?"

"Hmm?" Katie asked, turning to follow Isabella's gaze. "Oh, him? He's new. Phineas Flynn, I think."

"Oh." Isabella said, unable to name the reason for the twinge of disappointment.

"They say he's pretty amazing."

"What?" Isabella asked, turning back to Katie. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Dunno." Katie said with a shrug. "Something about him and his brother. Apparently Django knows him from somewhere. He says we'll find out at lunch."

Isabella stared at her for a second. "And how long has he been here exactly?"

"Just since this morning. Why?"

"You, Katie, know how to find your way through a grapevine."

Katie grinned. "Why, thank you."

Isabella looked back over her shoulder at the retreating boy in the hallway.

"Looks kinda strange, doesn't he?" Katie said. "I mean, with that triangle-shaped head and all. They say his brother has green hair too."

"Uh-huh." Isabella mumbled, not really paying attention.

 _WHACK!_

Isabella went sprawling backwards onto the floor with a cry of pain.

"Isabella!" Katie called.

Isabella blinked hard, trying to find the reason for the colors spreading across her vision. A couple seconds later she came to realize it was a door. She had run headfirst into Mrs. Edelson's door.

Katie's hand appeared in front of her face to help her up, and Isabella mumbled her thanks before taking it, all the while still rubbing her forehead.

"You're welcome." said a voice that was definitely not Katie's.

Isabella let go of the hand in surprise and would have fallen to the floor again if he hadn't caught her.

"Hey, careful!" called Phineas Flynn, grabbing her by the arm. "Are you alright?"

He was looking at her with concern. His eyes were dark blue. They looked like they could hold the whole world. Isabella nodded, dazed.

"Young lady, watch where you're going." came the disapproving voice of Mrs. Edelson. "Isabella, is that you?"

Isabella realized in that moment she was still holding on to Phineas Flynn's arm. She hurriedly let go and jumped upright until she practically hit the ceiling, then came back down. " _Yes ma'am!"_

A second later she pitched forward once again and grabbed onto the door to keep herself upright.

"Hey, would you stop doing that?" asked Phineas Flynn before grabbing her by the shoulders and pulling her upright. "Uh, do I have permission to take her to the nurse, Mrs…"

"Edelson. Alright. Whose class do you have?"

"Uh… it's in my pocket." Phineas Flynn said, trying to both keep Isabella from falling over and grab it at the same time. He handed her the schedule.

" _Oh, you have mine. Just hurry back. Isabella has this class too." Mrs. Edelson said._

" _Thank you."_

The voices were fading, making it hard for Isabella to focus. She thought she heard Katie say something about going with her, but after Mrs. Edelson shook her head Katie vanished inside the classroom.

Phineas Flynn glanced worridley at her as Mrs. Edelson went back inside.

" _You okay? You hit… really hard… really bad spot."_

"I can't hear you." Isabella said. Her legs felt weaker, and a second later her knees buckled out from under her.

Phineas Flynn gasped and caught her. Then he sighed.

" _Okay, here we go."_ At least that was what Isabella thought he said. Then Phineas Flynn scooped her up beneath her knees and shoulders, carrying her bridal style down the hallway.

Isabella's conscious thoughts consisted of _Wow he's really strong_ and _God this is so embarrassing_ mushed into one.

They got to the nurse's office a couple minutes later, and Nurse Elsbury looked up in surprise when Phineas Flynn carried Isabella in and set her on a bed.

"Goodness, what happened?" she asked, standing and walking over. It took Isabella a minute, but she realized the voices were a little clearer.

"She hit her forehead really hard, right there." Phineas Flynn said, pointing. "I think she might have a mild concussion."

Isabella blinked hard, but that made her head hurt, so she tried to focus more on what they were saying, but that made her head hurt worse.

Concussion was probably right.

"Well, that shouldn't happen from something simple like that…" Nurse Elsbury was saying. Phineas Flynn must have explained what had happened. "Was anything different this morning?"

Isabella realized she was talking to her.

"Um…" she blinked again, trying to register the question. "I didn't eat breakfast this morning?"

Nurse Elsbury sighed. "That'll do it. You should stay in here until lunch." She turned back to Phineas Flynn. "Thanks for bringing her here. Do you need a pass?"

He shook his head. "Mrs. Edelson knows I'm here. Thanks, though."

"Sure."

Isabella was about to ask him to stay when she realized that would be really stupid.

So instead Nurse Elsbury helped her sit up and told her she shouldn't fall asleep. Isabella decided to focus on that instead, and hope she would in fact be out of here by lunch to find out what was so amazing about Phineas Flynn.


	3. Chapter 3

"Took you long enough." Ferb remarked as Phineas sat down.

"Yeah, so sorry. I know how much help you need in English." Phineas replied sarcastically. "I was taking this girl to the nurse."

"What? Why?"

"She ran into a door."

Ferb snorted.

"Hey, stop laughing, you jerk. She has a concussion."

"Oh, hang on, I'll take off my hat in respect."

Phineas stuck his tongue out.

"Well, boys." came Mrs. Edelson. "Since it's your first day and you obviously already know everything about Shakespeare—"

"It's believed he wrote his first play in 1590-1592." Phineas said, answering the question he had barely heard.

The teacher blinked. "Uh, right."

Both Phineas and Ferb turned to face the front of the room and waited for the teacher to continue, but not before getting a few surprised looks.

They both gave each other a knowing smile.

Most of the day passed about the same, in various classes. When lunchtime rolled around, Phineas went to the nurse's office to find Ferb already standing outside.

"Wha— how did you know I was coming here?"

"Because you're you. Come on, let's meet concussion girl."

"Her name's Isabella."

"I'm sure it is."

When they walked into Nurse Elsbury's office, Isabella was sitting up on the bed, leaning against the wall, looking like just about the boredest person on the face of the planet.

"Hey there." Phineas called.

Isabella turned to him, and her face lit up. "Hi Phineas Flynn—" she stopped abruptly and cleared her throat.

Phineas could feel the amusement practically radiating off of Ferb.

"Sorry," she said, now looking incredibly embarrassed. "In the hallway Katie said your name was Phineas Flynn, and well— um."

"That's okay." Phineas said. "Are you feeling better?"

"Bored out of my mind, but better. You know you didn't have to check up on me."

"It's in his nature to care about every single person in existance." came Ferb's voice from next to him.

Phineas shot him a glare. "You're chatty today."

Ferb gave an innocent smile.

Phineas turned back to Isabella. "Sorry. That's—" he gestured to Ferb. "My brother. Who is being particularly annoying today."

"You say annoying, I say loveable."

"He really does have green hair." Isabella said curiously.

Ferb turned back to Isabella and raised his eyebrows. "Excuse me?"

Isabella's grin turned slightly devious. "You heard me."

Phineas burst out laughing. "Oh, we are going to be good friends, aren't we?" Something in him deflated a bit as he said that, but for the life of him he couldn't figure out why.

"Okay, Isabella." came a voice from Nurse Elsbury. She walked out of her back office. "You should be good to go. I don't really think you need to go to the emergency room, but if you want to—"

"No, that's okay." Isabella said. "I really do feel much better. And to be honest, I'd rather see what Katie meant when she called you two amazing." Isabella said, turning back to Phineas and Ferb.

Phineas raised his eyebrows. "Word spreads fast in this school, huh?"

"It does if you're friends with Katie."

Phineas chuckled. "Well, she's right. You're in for a treat." he said as Isabella stood up. "At least, you are if you don't like gravity."

"Uh… what?"

…

Ferb had said they should probably start a new school off with a bang. And Phineas, who's philosophy (other than _Carpe Diem_ ) was the crazier the better, agreed.

An anti-gravity device just happened to be the thing they could build in the right amount of time.

Curious looks came from other students around the lunchroom as to what they were doing. Isabella had sat at that their table, and was joined by Katie after a question as to whether or not she could.

When there were about five minutes left in lunch, Phineas pulled a megaphone out of his backpack and stood up on his chair.

Isabella and Katie's looks moved to him.

"Can I have everyone's attention please?" Phineas said, and the few people whose attention he hadn't grabbed by standing on the chair turned to face him.

"Most of you have probably noticed the giant machine on the table by now," Phineas said, gesturing. "And are wondering what it does. I am simply here to inform you that you will not hit the ceiling, and that you should just enjoy yourself." He turned back to his brother. "Ferb?"

As various sounds of confusion and doubtfulness resonated throughout the room, Ferb switched the device on. Almost immediately, everyone began to float upwards. There were cries of shock, which eventually turned into cries of delight.

Phineas glanced down to see Isabella floating right for him, looking very panicked. He grinned at her.

"Are you crazy?!" she screamed.

"I prefer to think of it as naturally caffeinated with a too-big brain." Phineas said.

"Really?" she asked, now more curious than scared.

Phineas paused. "No. I literally came up with that on the spot right now." he admitted. "Not bad though, right?"

"Not _terrible._ But don't quit your day job."

She looked down again, and Phineas couldn't help but smile a little more when he noticed she didn't look afraid anymore.

Everyone else was getting louder as they got used to it and started moving around. For that reason Isabella had to shout her next question: " _How are the tables still on the ground?!"_

" _Technology!"_ Phineas yelled back. He floated closer. "We have it set to only affect items above 90 pounds that are also constantly mobile. So no wheeled tables and no food in the air." he explained into her ear.

"Oh." Isabella said.

Or, that's what she mouthed. It was kind of hard to hear her. So instead, he grabbed onto her hand and pulled her closer to the ceiling, where no other kids resided. "Better?" he asked.

But she didn't answer. Instead, she was staring at their hands. Phineas realized he was still holding hers, and he let go hurriedly.

"Um, yeah, better." Isabella said. "You, uh, you really are amazing." she froze. "I meant about the invention! That was amazing! _It_ is amazing, and, uh, someone's going to be really lucky to have you someday."

Phineas' hand flew to his wrist where his soulmate's name resided. Why in the world would she say _that_?

Oh, duh— she was looking at his wrist. That's where people's names are, Phineas.

Just then the bell rang. Phineas looked at Isabella in shock.

"What?" she asked nervously.

The next second, the two fell from ten feet in the air with a scream.

Phineas landed directly on top of his brother, sending them both to the ground. A second later, Isabella landed on top of him. "Ow…" she muttered. "What was that?"

"An oversight." Phineas mumbled, shoving himself off of Ferb, who looked simultaneously pissed off and amused— a common face for him today. "We set it to run with the bell schedule, but also forgot to account for the fact that most people would still be in the air… and then we flew up to the ceiling." The three of them stood up.

No one else seemed to be the least bit bothered by the fall, more bright-eyed and excited. There was happy remarks and cheers all around.

"Well, aside from the fact that I'm going to have a massive bruise on my rear end…" Ferb muttered. "I'd say that went pretty well."

Phineas gave him a sheepish smile, and by the time they all walked out of the lunchroom, with Phineas grabbing the anti-gravity device on the way out, he had almost forgotten all about soulmates.

…

Soulmates always had been (and always would be) a touchy subject for Phineas Flynn.

Maybe it came from the fact that his parents were not soulmates. Both their soulmates were dead, and the people he considered his mother and father had only gotten married after the fact.

Maybe it came from the fact that his sister's story was about as lucky as you could get— Candace and her soulmate Jeremy Johnson had always lived in Danville together. They had dated as teenagers and gotten married shortly after going to the same college together.

Maybe it was simply that he felt a little unnerved by the fact that an unknown name on his arm was who he was supposed to marry one day.

 _Rose Bullock._

He knew nothing about her. Family, personality, lifestyle, hell, he didn't even know her hair color. And Rose was a name that could come from any number of countries, so he couldn't even draw any clues from _that_.

His parents told him that there was no pressure. It would just happen when it happened. He didn't need to lose any sleep over it. His sister, on the other hand, always told him to stop worrying so much in the first place. It was his _soulmate_. It would work out, duh.

None of that advice was exactly helpful.

Ferb told him that he saw the names more as an opportunity. Something you could wake up one day and decide to do. His name was, to a certain extent, much more exotic _(Antoinette Laurent)_ , so he could not wait to go see the world on a quest to find his soulmate— er, no. That's what Candace said, and what she assumed his opinion was. Ferb said he was waiting for something. A feeling, or a sign of some sort. _Then_ he would go off to find this person.

"She's in _France_ , dude." Phineas would remark. "Look at the freakin' name."

"You never know." Ferb would reply. Phineas would groan.

No matter what the reason actually was, soulmates always made him uneasy. You want to make him feel insecure, find a way to bring up his soulmate. But… it was usually a passing feeling. It would ruin the rest of his day, sure, but that was _all_ it would usually do.

So why did Isabella bringing his soulmate up feel so much worse?


	4. Chapter 4

Isabella had an outing with Gretchen the following day. They went to a bookstore that Gretchen loved to go to (especially on Saturdays), and she brought along $200. How she managed to save up that much solely for books, Isabella would never know.

Gretchen vanished into the teen fiction section, and Isabella, against her better judgement, walked over to the nonfiction and started looking for books on soulmates. For no reason whatsoever. None, thank you very much.

"'Soulmates: Everything You've Ever Wondered.'" Isabella muttered to herself.

She opened the book and flipped to a random page near the beginning.

 _Your soulmate is your one true love. They have been around almost as long as humanity itself. This book both highlights how to find your soulmate and explores the many different theories as to how soulmates originally came about. No one is really sure how—_

Isabella stopped reading, and tucked the book under her arm. This was exactly what she needed. Basic reminders on soulmates, how they worked, why they existed. She was dealing with some feelings she didn't quite understand, and some reminders of what she should do with her life were perfect right now.

Although Gretchen seemed more than a little surprised when Isabella showed up at the counter with a book on soulmates. Isabella being 100% sure of her soulmate was literally part of her reputation. Isabella lied easily, saying it was for an assignment, and the two brought their books and left the store.

Isabella tucked the book into her purse, and forgot all about it the whole time they were at lunch at Paul Bunyan's (where the food was good, but not too good). Unfortunately for Isabella, Gretchen thought the food was decent enough to warrant eating there every couple of weeks. (It was her favorite place to go.)

She only thought of the book again after dinner that night, when she went into her room and tossed her purse onto the floor only for there to be a loud _thunk_ that wasn't usually there.

 _Oh yeah,_ she realized. _I bought that today._

She reached inside the purse and fumbled around for a bit before pulling the book out and moving over to her bed.

The table of contents was not very long, but then, neither was the book.

* * *

 _Part One: A History of Soulmates_

 _-Where Did Soulmates Come From?_

 _-How Did People Figure it Out?_

 _-Famous Soulmates in History_

 _Part Two: How To Find Your Soulmates_

 _-What to Avoid_

 _-Several Names and Numbers to Help You_

 _-How to Approach Your Soulmate_

 _Part Three: Soulmates of All Shapes and Sizes_

 _-How to Deal With Language Differences_

 _-Should I be Worried if my Soulmate is a Different _?_

 _-My Soulmate is Famous or Well-Known_

 _-My Soulmate is Not What I Expected_

 _Part Four: Other Facts and Notes_

* * *

Isabella flipped to part three, section two. Maybe section four would help more, but the second one also sounded possibly beneficial, so she went there first. The first part said this:

 _Whatever the ending to that question is, no, you should not. Soulmates come in all varying genders, sexualities, ethnicities, and more. The important thing to remember is that this is_ fate _. They are the right one for_ you _._

 _You might have to work through some differences at first, but this is why relationships before your soulmate are recommended. Give yourself a practice round so you know what to do. But also remember that that person you may or may not start dating is not your soulmate. You might develop feelings for them, but it is simply not comparable to what you will one day come to have with your soulmate._

 _Back to the topic at hand—_

 _Okay._ Isabella thought. _So that's it. Maybe I have a— a crush. But Phineas is not my soulmate. Nothing will ever happen between us._

And she didn't need a "practice round." She had never considered that necessary. Not for _her_. After all, her mother hadn't had a practice round, so she didn't need one either.

She realized she felt a million times better. Here was proof. These feelings were normal, but she shouldn't dwell on them. She just needed to sit on them for a while, and they would go away.

She let out a sigh of relief and set the book to the side, changing into her pajamas and crawling under the covers.

It had been a strange two days. But she was just a little confused. In time, this would disappear.

…

The next morning Isabella's mother woke her up at 7:30 and the two went to the synagogue a couple blocks over.

Isabella sat in the back of the room with her mother, trying hard to focus but finding her thoughts distracting. She still had homework later, and a _lot_ of it.

Afterwards, however, she would still find it hard to focus on it because of what she saw as they pulled into their driveway.

Across the street was a giant ice cream sundae.

That was impossible. And where had she seen the impossible lately?

 _Phineas and Ferb._

"No way." she whispered to herself, and without asking for permission and ran across the street. She shoved open the back gate, also without permission, which revealed the very two people she had really hoped wouldn't be there.

"Oh, hey Isabella." Phineas said. Ferb waved.

"What— what are you _doing_ here?"

"Um, we live here?" Phineas said. "Why?"

"That's— that's my house. Over there." Isabella said, pointing across the street.

"Really?" Phineas said. "That's awesome!"

That had not been Isabella's reaction.

"Do you want some ice cream?" he said, gesturing to the giant sundae.

"Um, no I have— homework. Like, a lot of it."

"Oh, that's too bad. Well here then." He grabbed a giant ice cream scoop and somehow managed to get a reasonable amount into a reasonably sized bowl. "You can eat some while you do homework."

"Oh, thanks." Isabella said, taking the ice cream and backing out of the gate as fast as she possibly could.

This was going to be more problematic than she thought. They were living _across the street from her._ How was she supposed to ignore them and let the feelings go away _now?_

Over the next couple of hours, Isabella got exactly no homework done. Instead, she played with the ice cream in her bowl until it melted, then drank the ice cream soup (+ bananas).

Eventually, Isabella realized it was 6:00 and she hadn't even started on homework. She managed to shove Phineas to the back of her mind and pull her English out of her backpack.

It took her a good couple hours to get her homework done, with a quick break for dinner. By the time she finished, it was 2:00 AM and she was struggling to keep her eyes open.

Suddenly, as she was putting her pajamas on and climbing into bed, her phone went off. Isabella fumbled around her nightstand and grabbed it. The recently added _Phineas Flynn_ contact shone back at her.

She hit 'accept' and put the phone to her ear. "Phineas?" she said blearily.

"Hey Isabella! Are you done with homework? Did you like the sundae? 'Cause I saved some more for you in the freezer just in case you wanted more. Do you want more?"

"Phineas, it's 2 in the morning." Isabella mumbled.

There was a pause, probably Phineas looking at a clock.

"Oh my _gosh,_ is it really? I'm so sorry, I didn't realize what time it was! Did I wake you up?"

"Wasn't asleep yet." Isabella said, running a hand through her hair and blinking herself awake. Her eyes were doing that thing when they went cross-eyed when she was tired. "Told you I had a ton of homework." _And some very distracting thoughts._

"Wow. Apparently. Do you still want the sundae?"

"What, am I supposed to walk over there and get it at this hour?"

"Why not?"

Isabella laughed. "You are a dangerous boy. I'll be right over."

Isabella walked quietly downstairs and grabbed a jacket to put on over her tank top pajamas. It took her about ten seconds to make it across the street and knock on the door. Phineas opened it a second later.

"Would your parents be okay with this?"

"…Maybe?"

"Good enough for me."

The two walked inside. Phineas' house still had a lot of boxes all over the place, probably because they hadn't fully unpacked yet, but as they got to the kitchen there weren't any to be seen, which made sense. Eating was kind of important. Phineas pulled the ice cream (solid form, not soup this time) out of the freezer and set it down in front of Isabella, who took a bite and nearly dropped the spoon.

"Phineas, this doesn't taste like it's been frozen," she said in shock.

"Yeah. Ferb and I added that feature. Do you like it?" Phineas asked eagerly, seeming to want an actual opinion.

"It's _amazing_." Isabella said genuinely. "Where is Ferb, by the way? Why are you still up?"

"I took a nap earlier today and got about four hours of sleep just now, so I'm good to go for the day."

Isabella stared at him. "Are you human?"

"Yep. I'm a short sleeper." Phineas said with a shrug. "I can operate on less sleep than the average person. I typically only need about 4 or 5 hours, but if I only get 2 or 3 I'm pushing it. Less leeway. Missing an hour or two makes a bigger difference. Oh, and of course I need more when I'm sick."

Isabella sighed. "Lucky. I'm gonna be a zombie tomorrow."

Phineas raised an eyebrow. "I think I can help you with that." He walked into the other room and came back a second later with a small device, about the size of an alarm clock. He tossed it to her, and she caught it. He walked over and pointed out a dial. "You can set that manually, or hit the button on the top for half an hour. It reverses time for just you, so no one else notices. Ferb made me build him one since I keep waking him up at ungodly hours. Just make sure that you don't go too far back and erase the completion of some of your homework; otherwise you can get as much sleep as you want."

Isabella stared at Phineas in awe. "Where have you been all my life?" she whispered.

Phineas blinked in shock and went bright red.

Isabella only realized what she'd said a second later, causing her to turn an even deeper shade of the same color. "Ahh, sorry! I have no filter when I'm tired."

"Uh… that's okay." Phineas stuttered. "I'm, uh… glad you like the ice cream."

"It's really good." Isabella said, taking another bite. "Where'd you get the ice cream?" she asked, trying to lighten the mood a bit.

"The moon."

"Ex-cuse me?"

"We sent some cows up there a couple years ago. Now we head up there every now and then… or, we did. We still have to build some stuff to make this house compatible. The giant sundae today was the last bit of it."

"Oh yeah?" Isabella asked. "Well you'll have to work on that."

"Wha— I already brought you ice cream from the moon! What more do you want from me?"

Isabella laughed, and the two proceeded to make small talk and tease each other until Isabella finished her ice cream at about 3 AM and walked back across the street with her new magic alarm clock.

It was only when she got back to her bedroom and noticed her soulmate book on her desk that she noticed what she had just done for the past hour.

Guilt and fear crept up in her chest. _Come on, Isabella! What are you doing? How are these feelings supposed to go away if you keep_ acting on them?!

Isabella glanced down at the alarm clock in her hands and promptly threw it in the trash.

 _Phineas Flynn is not your soulmate. You need to stop this. The end, no more, enough of him entirely._

 _It's what's best._


	5. Chapter 5

For some reason, the alarm clock had not worked. At least, that was what Isabella had told Phineas the next morning.

Phineas had been surprised, to say the least. "I thought I worked out all the bugs in that thing…" he mumbled. He ran a hand through his hair, guilt creeping in. "Geez, I'm sorry, Isabella. I'll make you a new one. I'm just sorry it couldn't work out for you today. And I'm the one that kept you up so late."

"Phineas, I was up till 2 already." Isabella said, also looking incredibly guilty, though Phineas wasn't sure why. It wasn't her fault his stupid invention had decided to break at the worst possible time. "And it's not like I didn't enjoy…" But she let her voice trail off and did not finish the sentence.

"Still, I really thought that would work. I'll make you a brand new one. And I'll make sure to double check it this time."

"No, really, it's okay. I'm fine." Isabella said.

"You look _exhausted."_

"So I'll suffer through the day like an ordinary teenager. I'll be fine." Isabella said. "I'll do it for all those teenagers who don't have friends that build them magic alarm clocks." She yawned and rubbed her eyes.

Phineas sighed. "Sorry anyway." he mumbled. The two of them walked into their first period english with Mrs. Edelson and Phineas slid into the desk next to his brother while Isabella sat down on the one on the other side of him, next to Katie.

"Wow." Katie remarked to Isabella. "You look like you woke up on the wrong side of the bed."

"Oh for pete's sake, all of you!" Isabella said, throwing up her hands. "It's my own fault, I put off homework till like six in the evening! Why are we still talking about it?"

"You know, I have this alarm clock—" Ferb started.

"I already gave her one." Phineas cut in. "She said it didn't work."

Ferb gave Isabella a curious look. "Really? What was wrong with it?"

She shrugged, biting her lip.

Mrs. Edelson walked in at that minute already talking, and the three of them turned towards the front of the room to focus.

About halfway through her second sentence, Phineas pulled out his sketchbook and flipped to the page he had drawn the alarm clock on. But after spending most of the lecture on Shakespeare going over it, he still couldn't find anything wrong with it. He passed it over to Ferb, who took it without question and began to look for things wrong with it himself. Phineas grabbed Ferb's notebook and took notes for both of them, continuing where Ferb had left off in his notebook, and adding new ones in Ferb's. That was the way they usually came up with ideas for lunch hour if they were running behind.

When the bell rang, Phineas glanced back over at his brother, who shrugged. Apparently he couldn't find anything wrong either.

"Huh." Phineas mumbled, taking the sketchbook and handing Ferb back his notebook.

Second hour they both had Chemistry with Mr. Henrickson. That class Phineas actually paid attention in, because neither him nor Ferb were the best in the chemistry part of inventing, and Phineas had made it his goal in this school to get better at the topic.

Even though he felt sure he would _never_ remember all the elements and how they reacted. Honestly, that was their biggest problem, because not knowing how to handle radioactive elements could lead to some issues. There was a reason they had moved, and it had not been for a job opportunity.

So, Chemistry. That class was critical.

By the time he made it to third hour, which was honors history with Mr. Eyberg, he could tell Ferb had come to a conclusion about what was wrong with the invention. He just didn't know what it was.

He couldn't ask him, because Ferb had art third hour. Luckily for him, Isabella had history that hour too. And since there weren't assigned seats in history, he walked over to where she was.

"Hey." Phineas said, and Isabella jerked upwards. "Anyone sitting there?" he gestured at the seat next to her.

"No! I mean yes! I mean— uh— you are now?"

Phineas grinned. "Great." he sat down in the seat.

Phineas loved history, which might surprise you. It wasn't his favorite subject by any means (that honor went to Art), but he loved learning about people before him who had changed the world, for the better or the worse. It just reaffirmed his decision that one day he wanted to be one of the people who changed it for the better.

Isabella seemed to be avoiding his gaze for the entire class period, which Phineas did not understand. Was this about the alarm clock? Was she that upset it hadn't worked? She hadn't seemed terribly upset in English.

When the bell rang for 4th hour Phineas turned to Isabella. "Hey, are you alright? You seem a little upset."

"What? No, I'm not. I'm just— tired." Isabella said, standing.

 _Right._

Phineas sighed. "Right."

"Hey, it's really okay. It's my own fault. Maybe I just hit the buttons wrong or something." Isabella said. "You can come over tonight and look at it if you want." Isabella froze after she said that and slapped a hand over her mouth.

"Um… okay, maybe I will."

Isabella nodded behind her hand.

Phineas slowly picked his stuff up and moved towards fourth hour, unsure why Isabella was acting so strange today. Was it really just because she was tired? Why was he trying to analyze this? Why couldn't he take her at her word? Why was he borderline obsessed with this girl he'd just met?

By the time lunch rolled around he was tired of school and ready to go home.

But when he got to the same table they had used yesterday (one in the middle of the cafeteria because it gave better access), he was reminded that they still had the invention to build for lunch hour. It was probably an expected thing at this point. One thing Phineas had learned about people is that they become used to something they like very quickly. Or at the very least, they want something similar to happen again.

Luckily for them, he and Ferb had come up with something that morning at breakfast. Because when in doubt, take a past invention and apply it to something knew. That was why they had spent all of English going over a certain blueprint. Hopefully the alarm clocks worked for real this time.

Phineas got out his megaphone. "Ladies and gentlemen, you're about to lose your lunch. Just give it a minute."

People sounded a little worried that Phineas was being literal. He was, but not in the way they were thinking.

Ferb pulled out the alarm clock and hit the button on top. Time reversed for five minutes (set for everyone in the lunchroom to know this time), and everyone's lunches reappeared behind the counter where they had gotten them from the lunch ladies.

Everyone cried out in suprise, but before anyone could storm down Phineas, Ferb, Isabella, and Katie's lunch table in anger, Phineas pulled a massive box out of his backpack.

He opened the box and out flew many different airplanes with platters covered in a five course meal.

"Okay, first of all, _what?!"_ Katie burst out. "How did any of that fit?!"

"Have you ever seen Doctor Who?" Phineas asked innocently.

Katie's eyes widened. "No way. _Really?!"_

Phineas raised a teasing eyebrow.

Katie squealed.

"So why the food?" Isabella asked, as she took a piece of steak off a passing plane.

"It's either a play on airplane food or 'here comes the airplane.' You take your pick." Phineas said with a shrug.

"I'd go with airplane food." Ferb said. "We already used 'here comes the airplane,' remember?"

Phineas shot him a curious look. "We did?"

Ferb nodded. "It was the first invention you built by yourself. You were three."

Phineas sighed. "Ladies and gentlemen, Ferb Fletcher. Memory of an elephant."

"Ah, I wear the title with pride."

An airplane with peanut bags passed. "Ooh, give me some of those!" Phineas said, snatching some bags up. Everyone else at the table stared at him. "What?" he asked. "It's a classic."

Every time the bell rang for lunch Phineas hit the button on top and reversed time for half an hour so everyone could finish eating the entire meal. All in all, that took about two hours.

"That," Isabella said happily. "Is _exactly_ what lunch should be."

"Agreed." Katie said. "Great job, Phineas."

Phineas smiled. "Well, thanks, but this one was Ferb's idea."

Ferb gave a mini-salute.

"Well then great job Ferb." Katie amended.

Finally, when everyone had had their fill, Phineas let the bell ring, and everyone moved into their 5th hour class, which for Phineas was Art with Isabella, so the two walked out of the lunchroom together.

"Okay, I'll admit. Those alarm clocks are probably one of the favorite inventions Ferb and I have ever made. Well, that and this thing we did a couple years ago…" Phineas stopped in the middle of his sentence, because when he turned, no one was there.

"Isabella?"


	6. Chapter 6

Just as Isabella was about to walk out with Phineas, someone grabbed her arm and yanked her back into the still-very-noisy lunchroom, which covered her gasp of surprise. When she turned it was only Ferb. He did, however, look very suspicious.

"Alright, spill it." Ferb said. "There was nothing wrong with the alarm clock we made in less than a hour, which means there was definitely nothing wrong with the one Phineas gave you that he spent a couple days on. And there is _no way_ Phineas did not explain to you how to use the thing. You _chose_ not to do it."

Isabella swallowed. "So?"

"Why would you do that?"

"Does it really matter that much?" she said, trying not to let her nervousness show and failing miserably.

"It's a little suspicious when someone who stayed up until 3 AM, when offered a chance to get a good amount of sleep, refuses. That doesn't make any sense. I'm just trying to get to a reasonable conclusion because I'm a little confused."

"Um…"

"Do you have something against my brother?"

"No! No, definitely not."

The bell rang for class and Ferb calmly set the alarm clock and hit the button on top. Suddenly there were people leaving the lunchroom again. "So what is it?" he continued.

"I'm trying to avoid him." Isabella blurted, and then smacked her hands over her mouth.

Ferb tipped his head in confusion. "Why?"

 _I think I have a massive crush on your brother and I'm trying to ignore it so it'll go away but so far I'm doing a really terrible job because he's cute and amazing and every second I spend with him only makes me like him more?_

"Because! Because I think sleep is immoral!"

Ferb raised an eyebrow. "Wow. You are an even worse liar than Phineas."

"No, I— I'm a big rule follower. I don't like breaking rules, and the Laws of Physics fall under that category. I don't want to participate in your law-breaking inventions." She crossed her arms and turned her head away.

A second later she opened one eye to see Ferb still standing there, also with his arms crossed. "Sorry, but I stand by my former statement. Not to mention the fact that almost every single one of our inventions you've seen so far has broken the Laws of Physics, and you haven't had a problem with any of those."

"Shoot." Isabella said to herself.

The bell rang again, and Ferb hit the button on top of the clock. He could do this _all day._

Isabella groaned. " _Fine._ I— I like Phineas."

"Yeah, I would think so."

"No. I mean I _like_ like him."

Ferb stared at her for a minute, as if he couldn't comprehend what she was saying. Then she realized that he probably couldn't. Despite the ideas of practice rounds, dating before your soulmate was still pretty rare. Isabella sighed and tried one more time.

"I like him like we're soulmates. But we're not."

Ferb's eyebrows shot up. Isabella couldn't read his face for a minute until finally he said: "That… explains a lot."

"It does?"

"Yeah." Ferb said, but Isabella had a sneaking suspicion that he wasn't talking about what she'd just said.

"Wait, what does it explain?"

Ferb hit the button on top of the alarm clock one more time and suddenly Phineas walked over next to them.

"Hey, how'd you guys get over here so fast?" he asked.

Isabella jerked backwards and put both of her hands behind her back as Ferb casually tucked the alarm clock into his bag. "No reason!" she practically screamed.

Phineas gave a look that said he sort of knew something was going on but he wasn't going to press, and then the two walked out of the lunchroom together, with Isabella casting a glance over her shoulder at Ferb at the last second.

Ferb smirked and gave a little wave.

Oh, that son of a—

…

And _of course_ Phineas was in the Garden Club.

Isabella had originally joined because Katie said it was kind of fun. But after a couple weeks, Katie had grown bored and quit. Isabella had not. She had found she actually enjoyed the planting and the digging. And she really loving yanking out the weeds— the parts of the garden she didn't like or that would choke other plants. Sometimes she wished she could do that with the rest of the world.

Phineas, after realizing Isabella was in the club too, spent almost the entire time next to her talking about many different topics. Isabella would soon forget how those topics connected, because she was spending most of the time responding while trying not to look at Phineas or remind herself of how cute he was.

At some point Phineas said he needed to get the hose and stood up abruptly. Just a little too abruptly apparently, because he slammed right into someone else.

"Oh geez, sorry!" Phineas called.

"It is alright." said the boy. "Do you need the hose?" He handed it to Phineas, who started to use it. "Thanks."

"I didn't take you for a _Garden Club_ person, Baljeet." Isabella said, raising an eyebrow. "I've never seen you here before."

"I… lost a bet." Baljeet admitted.

"Baljeet?" Phineas asked, turning around. "That name sounds familiar."

"Oh, he's a nerd _legend."_ Isabella said with a grin. "He figured out that unsolvable math problem in AP calculus. First one to do so in 20 years."

"Hmm." Phineas said, sounding unimpressed. "I bet Ferb could've done it in 10 minutes."

"Is that a challenge?" Baljeet asked in slight disbelief.

"Only if you want it to be." Phineas said with a little grin.

"You know it's a little weird to challenge him… for Ferb." Isabella pointed out.

"Eh." Phineas said with a shrug.

"Tomorrow morning in the library." Baljeet said curtly, then turned and walked away.

"You made him mad." Isabella warned.

Phineas cracked a knuckle. "Bring it on."

…

After Garden Club was over, Isabella found herself yet again in Phineas' company, standing in front of the school. In the four minutes since they'd gone inside to get their things it had apparently started pouring rain. Both were just standing there, neither wanting to move.

"I don't have a ride." Isabella said.

"Ferb and I have a teleportation system. But we don't know Danville well enough to build one for it yet. I was going to walk home."

"That's what I usually do." Isabella said. She paused. "Wait, you have a teleportation system?"

"Of course we do. But it takes a lot of work. Teleporters are surprisingly complicated for how simple the idea is."

"Do you guys realize you talk about groundbreaking inventions like they're common household items?"

Phineas shrugged. "They are. For us, anyway."

"So, what, your mom just appears in the grocery store when she needs to shop?"

Phineas tipped his head. "No, she prefers to drive. I try to mention that it's better for the environment if she uses them, but whenever I do she just acts like I'm being cute."

"Maybe she doesn't know you actually have them."

Phineas shook his head. "I don't see how that's possible. We've used them for what, six years?"

"Why would I know?" Isabella said with a shrug. She glanced back at the sheet of rain. "You wanna wait this out?"

"Are you crazy?" Phineas asked in disbelief. "I'm not bowing to Mother Nature!"

"Well." Isabella said. "Of course nothing silly like that."

"Give me 10 minutes." Phineas said. "And we're still gonna get a little wet." He walked back inside the school, already digging inside his backpack.

It was almost exactly ten minutes later when he reemerged, carrying—

"Oh my god." Isabella said. "That's as amazing as it is cliché."

Phineas was holding a pair of detachable wings. He grinned. "I can be cliché when I want to."

"Or when you're trying to avoid getting soaked?"

"Something like that." he slipped the wings on over his bag. "Hold on tight." He grabbed Isabella, backpack and all, and the two soared up towards the clouds through the rain.

"We're still soaking wet!" Isabella laughed when they broke through the cloud layer. "And those clouds were frickin' cold!"

"We're like 20,000 feet in the air, they're probably made of thin ice!" Phineas called back. "Hang on." He did a number of barrel rolls, and they were dry at the end of them.

Isabella laughed. "And now we look _awesome_ , I'm sure."

"Speak for yourself." Isabella glanced up. Phineas' hair was stuck flat to his head and his cheeks were bright red from the cold. "I always look this good."

Isabella snorted into her hand.

"Oh, are you making fun of me? I could drop you, you know."

"You wouldn't."

"People can survive drops of 20,000 feet."

"Oh yeah? Prove it."

Phineas grinned maliciously.

"ON YOUR PHONE WHEN WE GET BACK ON THE GROUND!"

And then Phineas cackled.

After about five minutes of gliding in silence and taking in the view, Phineas said something about it being five miles to the horizon at this height, so they should probably head down now. Apparently he timed it right, because when they flew low enough to make out the houses they were right above their neighborhood. The rain had slowed to a drizzle, and Phineas offered to have her stay for dinner, but she said she should probably be getting home. (She had spent _far_ too much time with Phineas that day.)

"But… thanks for that. It was amazing."

"Anytime."

The two parted ways until later.


	7. Chapter 7

"Hey, mom and dad told me to tell you— _what happened to you?!"_ Ferb burst out when he saw Phineas walk in. Yeah, he probably still looked like a wreck.

Phineas grinned. "I gave Isabella a ride home." he slipped first the wings, then the backpack off his shoulders and walked over to his brother.

At the mention of Isabella, Ferb raised his eyebrows. "Uh-huh."

"What?"

Ferb raised his eyebrows higher.

"What?"

"Do you like her like a soulmate?" Ferb questioned.

It was Phineas' turn to raise his eyebrows. "Excuse me?"

"There really aren't words that make a lot of sense. Trust me, I looked it up. Do you have a crush on her?"

"Uh…" Phineas bit his lip, trying to think of a way out of this conversation.

"Phineas! Can you come here, please?"

"Yes!" Phineas called. "Yes Mom, I absolutely can! Sorry Ferb, that sounds important!" He ran off.

…

Phineas had not thought once of having a crush on Isabella until Ferb brought up. But now that he had, it made a lot of sense.

It also made Phineas start to panic. As if his feelings about a soulmate couldn't get more complicated.

After dinner, Phineas walked into his parents room while they were making the bed. "Hey, uh, Mom? Can I talk to you?"

"Sure, honey." his mom said, walking out the door.

He knew he should probably have this conversation with his dad too. He wasn't entirely sure why he wanted to talk to his mom first. Maybe it was simply because she'd known him longer?

When Linda shut the door, Phineas came right out with it. "Mom, would you be okay with me liking someone other than my soulmate?"

Linda blinked in surprise and looked back towards the bedroom door a second later, then back at Phineas. "Honey, I'm married to someone who's not my soulmate."

"Yeah, I know, but I mean, both your and dad's soulmates are… you know. Mine's not… that we know of…"

"Did you have someone specific in mind?" Linda asked carefully.

"Maybe." Phineas explained to the carpet. It was not yet determined whether or not the carpet was listening positively.

"Phineas, look at me sweetheart."

He did.

"I'm going to assume you don't mean this like a practice round."

He shook his head, biting his lip.

"Well, I could not possibly get angry without being a hypocrite. Just know that people are going to look down on this if you are serious about this person. They are going to think that it is a practice round, and they are not going to respond positively to that, and when they realize it's not a practice round, they are going to react even worse. You're going to make your life a lot harder than it needs to be. Sometimes you end up hating the person and thinking they weren't worth it."

Phineas' eyes widened. "Did you and Dad ever—"

"Oh no, honey, goodness no." Linda reassured. Phineas felt his chest loosen. "Marrying your father, and the family that's come with that decision will _always_ be worth it. But we have experienced a lot of prejudice from it, and as your mother, I would never wish that on you. Also," she said with a tiny smile. "Keep in mind you're a teenager."

Yeah. 15 years old was not necessarily the greatest time to make rest-of-your-life decisions. Another reason Candace and Jeremy had been an exception.

But more importantly…

"I didn't know people treated you and Dad different."

"We don't like to tell you kids those things." Linda explained.

"I mean, I guess I can see why…" Phineas muttered.

Linda kissed the top of Phineas' head. "Just be careful." She said. Then she turned and walked back into the other room.

…

It was after that conversation Phineas remembered Isabella had invited him over to look at her alarm clock all the way back during history.

For a second he looked across the street, debating whether or not to go based on everything that had happened today.

But before he could even consciously fully what to do, he was walking across the street.

He knocked three times on the door, and half a minute later Isabella opened it. "Phineas! Hey! What are you doing here?!" Isabella practically screamed.

"Oh, um." Phineas stopped awkwardly. "I came to look at your alarm clock. You offered, like— back in History."

There was a moment of awkward silence during which both teenagers looked at the ground.

"If—" Phineas looked up. "If you're busy, I can—"

"Not busy!" Isabella said quickly.

There was another few seconds of awkward silence.

"So… should we go look at the alarm clock?"

"Yes! Yes we should!"

They both went back inside and up the stairs to Isabella's room, where the alarm clock was sitting on her dresser.

Phineas picked it up and looked it over, trying to keep his eyes from straying to where Isabella was standing by her bed. It only took him about five minutes to confirm that there was nothing wrong with it.

"Which buttons did you hit?" Phineas asked.

Isabella walked over and showed him.

"Oh, I see what you did." Phineas said. He picked up the alarm clock. "You hit this button after hitting that one. That cancels the previous request."

"Ohhh." Isabella said, but she was still leaning backwards and biting her lip and generally acting very nervous.

"Hey, are you okay?" Phineas asked.

"I'm fine! I'm fine."

Phineas tipped his head in concern. "You sure?"

Isabella cleared her throat. "Yes. Sorry, I've just had a weird afternoon."

"Yeah, me too." Phineas muttered.

They were both silent for another couple seconds.

"Well!" Isabella yelled abruptly. "Thanks for looking at the alarm clock!" Then she froze. "That was really loud. Sorry!"

"It's okay." Phineas assured immediately. "I uh— I have to go home anyway. Ferb and I have to plan the— the lunch thing. The invention for lunch. That thing."

He was lying through his teeth— though admittedly not very well. They had finished that invention hours ago.

"Right, that thing. Bye. No wait, that was rude! Sorry, I'm not trying to kick you out or anything!"

"No, I know. I'll see you tomorrow." Phineas said, trying to keep the blush from creeping onto his cheeks and only managing to succeed until he shut Isabella's door.

His face was still bright red when he walked into his own room across the street. Ferb looked up and burst out laughing.

" _Ferb!"_ Phineas snapped, his face heating up more even as he did so.

When Ferb finally stopped he glanced back up at Phineas, only to start laughing all over again. "Oh, this is going to be _brilliant_ to watch." he wheezed.

Phineas growled slightly under his breath. "Oh, by the way," he said, walking over to his bed. "You challenged Baljeet in the library tomorrow morning."

Ferb stopped laughing and turned to Phineas in confusion. "What?"

"Or maybe that was me. Tomorrow morning in the library, you're having a tête-à-tête with Baljeet over that unsolvable math problem in AP Calculus. Which, seeing as he's already solved it once and you've never even seen it… you're probably gonna get humiliated."

Ferb stared at Phineas in shock, and Phineas couldn't help the massive grin spreading over his face.

"But hey! It's gonna be _brilliant_ to watch!"

Ferb was still staring.

"Goodnight!" Phineas called happily, hopping into his bed and turning on his side without even changing into his pajamas. He started snoring very loudly, very fakely.

"What?" Ferb asked to no one.


	8. Chapter 8

When Isabella walked into the library the next morning, a huge group was already gathered around a table to see the school's nerd legend and one of the new legends in general battle over the unsolvable problem.

Isabella was surprised by how full it was. It looked like half the school was there. How was she going to see?

Luckily for her, Phineas noticed her approach.

"Hey, Isabella!" The people watching cleared a path for him, and her grabbed her by the arm and pulled her up to the table. "Coming through people, VIP just arrived!"

"I'm a VIP?" Isabella asked with a smile, already blushing. Goddammit, she had just gotten here!

"Of course." Phineas said as if it should have been obvious. "You're our friend." But he said it in a tone of voice that made her pause.

But before she could ask the question that had just popped into her mind, they reached the front of the crowd, where Baljeet and Ferb were sitting across from each other at a table and Katie was standing just off to the left.

Isabella walked over to Katie and stood next to her, and Phineas took the other side.

Both Calculus textbooks were closed and the pencils and paper were arranged in very particular ways— apparently they were treating this very seriously.

People were basically vibrating in place there was so little space to move, but Isabella, Phineas, and Katie all had plenty of room. The circular mass of students started about three feet behind them. Someone mentioned they had to start soon— first period started in 20 minutes, and even trying the problem took _forever._

"I'm surprised so many people are here." Isabella remarked.

"They're either nerds here to see Baljeet cream Ferb, believers here to see if Ferb really can beat Baljeet, or idiots who will see anything that even closely resembles a fight." Katie said in a deadpan tone.

Isabella shrugged. "That's fair."

"There is _no way_ Ferb wins this." someone behind them nearby said. It was Gretchen.

Phineas turned around with a raised eyebrow. "Oh yeah?"

"Yeah. Look, I'm not saying what you and your brother do isn't amazing, because it definitely is. But are you _book smart?_ Baljeet has had straight As in every class since Kindergarten, and his _hobby_ is studying. Admittedly, he's a nerd, but he's a smart one. If you and Ferb spend most of your time dealing with inventions, how much time do you have for math?"

"You know, this might surprise you, but building stuff involves a lot of math." Phineas smirked. "I bet you ten bucks Ferb wins this thing."

"Thanks for the vote of confidence, Phin." Ferb muttered with a role of his eyes.

"He's your brother. Of course you bet for him." Gretchen pointed out.

"If you're so sure he'll lose then what's the risk?" Phineas asked. He put out his hand. Katie and Isabella's heads had been swiveling back and forth for the whole conversation.

Gretchen narrowed her eyes and shook. "You're on. _Twenty_ bucks says Ferb loses."

"Deal."

Buford Van Stomm— who was standing opposite Phineas, Katie, and Isabella with a phone at the ready— starting speaking: "Alright, you two nerds ready?"

A hush fell over the library, and Ferb and Baljeet both nodded.

"Open your textbooks in three, two…"

Phineas turned to Isabella and gave a knowing wink.

What in the world was that about?

Buford glared around at everyone. "Ugh! You're _all_ nerds! One, go!"

The books were flipped open to the correct page, and Baljeet started scribbling away. Ferb did a double take and some people snickered. But then Ferb knelt over the paper and started writing just as fast as Baljeet.

Isabella turned her right to see Phineas smirking back at her. He leaned over and whispered in her ear: " _I got Ferb that calculus book for Christmas when he was like, six. He spent half the year working out how to solve that particular problem in under a minute."_

Isabella gave Phineas a look of disbelief. Phineas grinned subtly and made a zipped lips motion. Then, before Isabella even realized she was doing it, she leaned back over and hissed: " _Fine. But you're using that twenty bucks to buy me dinner tonight."_

She turned her gaze quickly back to the scene in front of her to avoid Phineas' expression, and kept her eyes firmly fixed on the table so Phineas couldn't see the way she was smacking herself in the forehead with her eyes.

"Wait." said one kid across the circle. "Are… are we just going to watch them do math?"

"Done!" Ferb called loudly, smacking the paper down on the table.

It was comical how many people gasped, including Baljeet.

Buford took the paper with the correct answer on it from his pocket and leaned over to peer at Ferb's paper. After a second:

"He's… he's right." Buford said in amazement.

More gasps.

Isabella counted to three in her head.

And the library erupted.

It occured to Isabella in the midst of her hysterical laughing that it was a _math problem._ That just made her laugh harder.

As people were cheering they left the library at a run to go tell others, leaving, in the end, Phineas, Ferb, Isabella, Katie, Baljeet, and Buford. Also Gretchen, who slapped a $20 bill into Phineas' waiting hand and stomped off in anger.

Baljeet was sitting in a stunned silence. "How— did you do that?" he asked in disbelief.

"Huh." Buford said, sounding mildly impressed. "Not bad for a nerd."

Isabella sneaked a sly glance over at Phineas to find he was blushing, just like her.

…

At lunch, the table was joined by Baljeet and Buford, which surprised quite a few people, but no one actually at the table.

Phineas and Ferb's lunchtime invention that day was focused on drinks, where as the day before had been focused on food. Their machine analyzed people's preferences and made them their favorite drink (bar alcohol of course), and made them the drink in under a minute.

"Kind of a let down after your previous two." Baljeet grumbled into a cup of water.

"Says the person who's favorite drink is _water."_ Buford pointed out.

"Aww, someone's just bitter because he lost this morning." Isabella said with a mock pouty face. Then she and Phineas snickered, and Ferb rolled his eyes.

"What?" Buford asked.

"Nothing." Phineas said.

It was only after Phineas purposely spilled some of his chocolate milk and asked Baljeet to get a napkin (which he did) that he turned to the rest of the table. "Okay, we cheated."

Katie choked momentarily on her soda. "You _what?"_

Phineas explained quickly what happened before Baljeet got back, and by the time he did, Isabella was chuckling and Katie looked like she was going over everything that had happened that morning again in her head. Ferb was rolling his eyes and Phineas was obviously not trying to hide the fact that he was proud of himself. Buford looked like Phineas and Ferb had just earned a couple respect points in his book.

"What is everyone grinning about?" Baljeet asked, handing Phineas the napkin.

"Nothing." everyone said simultaneously.

…

Isabella was standing over her bed, debating what to wear.

 _Oh, stop it Isabella. It's not a date, because Phineas is not your soulmate._

She picked up her nice shirt and a pair of skinny jeans and went over to her dresser to do some makeup.

"So." came a voice. "You asked a boy on a date."

"Mamá!" Isabella jerked around to see her mother standing in the doorway. "No, of course not!"

Her mom raised an eyebrow.

"It's— it's not a date, mamá. He's just a friend."

"Are you sure?" She shrugged. "You're putting on makeup, Isa."

"It's not a date."

Her mom paused suspiciously for a second, then shrugged. "Well, either way, you always struck me as the kind of person who could use a practice round."

"Hey!" Isabella snapped. "Phineas is not a practice round, he's—"

Isabella froze when she saw her mother's triumphant smile. She realized in that moment that she'd yelled about Phineas not _being_ a practice round rather than her not _needing_ one.

How much did she actually like him?

"I— okay, maybe I like him. A tiny bit!"

"I thought so." Her mother said, her smile fading slightly. And that caused fear to suddenly stab Isabella in the stomach. She bit her lip. "Are you mad?"

Her mother smiled again, sadly this time. She walked over and kissed the top of Isabella's head. "I love you no matter what, sweetheart." She stepped back with her sad smile. "Just be careful."

Isabella bit her lip again to keep from tearing up, and gave her mother a grateful hug. "Thank you, mamá."

Her mother hugged her back, also smiling. "Now go on! He's waiting in the entryway."

" _What?!_ Mamá, why didn't you say anything?!" She turned and grabbed her clothing off the bed, running for the bathroom.

After she finished changing she realized that the conversation she'd just had, however brief, had addressed a lot of her fears towards her feelings about Phineas. After all, her mom still loved her. What did she have to be so scared or ashamed of?

She thought of the book she'd bought about soulmates that was sitting up in her room. It seemed amazingly silly now.

As she walked down the steps she was panicking about being overdressed. What if Phineas really didn't see this as a date? What if he was wearing like, a t-shirt and some ratty jeans, because they were just two friends going to a crappy restaurant or something? What if—

Phineas was wearing dark pants and a collared shirt, and fidgeting with said collar. And suddenly Isabella felt underdressed.

"Oh, my gosh. You look amazing." She said, glancing insecurely down at her outfit.

"So do you." Phineas said, just as nervously, and something in his tone made Isabella sure he meant it.

And just as suddenly, she didn't feel underdressed anymore.

She obviously liked him more than she'd realized.


	9. Chapter 9

"So, Isabella finally asked you on a date."

Phineas turned to Ferb in confusion. "Finally? What do you mean finally? And it's not a date."

"Phineas, you're putting too nice of a shirt on for it not to be a date."

"That's— not relevant. What do you mean finally?"

"Phineas, please. It's obvious she likes you just as much as you like her. Neither of you are very good at hiding your feelings, and if practice rounds were more common, plenty of less observant people would have picked up on it by now."

"It's _not_ obvious, Isabella is _not_ a practice round, and it's _not a date!"_

"Do you want it to be a date?"

"That's not relevant."

Maybe it had sounded a little bit like a date when Isabella had asked— okay, when Isabella had basically told him what they were doing that morning, and okay, fine, maybe Phineas wanted it to be a date… really, really badly. That didn't change anything.

Ferb rolled his eyes. "I've never realized how ridiculously oblivious you are before."

"Hey!" Phineas snapped. "If you're just going to stand there making smart-ass comments then you can leave instead." He finished buttoning up the shirt and turned around. "How do I look?"

"Like someone going on a date."

" _Shut up."_

He turned, grabbed his phone, shoved it in his pocket, and marched off.

When he reached the front entryway and grabbed the car keys with a house key attached (Phineas couldn't technically drive yet, but he had a better plan), his mother was standing there, smiling.

"Well, I didn't know Isabella was the girl you talked to me about." Linda said with a teasing smile. "She is pretty, isn't she?"

"Mom!" Phineas complained as Ferb's chuckling came from behind him. He then whirled around to face Ferb. "And that is enough out of you or I will shrink you with the shrink ray and make you sleep in the ship in a bottle tonight."

This, of course, only made Ferb laugh harder.

"Oh, go on." Linda said, nudging Phineas towards the door. "I'm sure you'll have a wonderful time. Make sure to put the bikes back in the garage."

"Um… okay?" Phineas said hesitantly as he walked out the door. He hadn't planned on taking the bikes out of the garage. After his mom shut the door he did go over to the garage, but rather than get the bikes, Phineas hit the switch on the side of the pegboard full of tools, revealing an upgraded version of the wings he had used to get them home after Garden Club yesterday. He pulled them down and hit another button, on the side of the wings this time, which shrunk them down to a size he could fit in his hand.

How they were getting there was a surprise.

When Phineas knocked, Isabella's mom answered.

"Oh, Isabella is in her room getting ready. I'll go get her." she said.

"Thanks." Phineas replied. He stood in the entryway, fidgeting with his collar. Maybe he shouldn't have worn it. Maybe a sweatshirt would have been better. Maybe the whole outfit was too much. Maybe Isabella was going to come down in a sweatshirt and ratty jeans, because they were just two friends going to get food or something?

Isabella's footsteps came pounding down the stairs— she sounded like she was running.

When she came into view, she was wearing a t-shirt that hung loosely and really brought out her eyes, and a pair of skinny jeans and makeup.

"Oh, my gosh. You look amazing." she said.

"So do you." Phineas said nervously.

There was a brief silence, and Phineas cleared his throat. "You uh— you wanna head out?"

"Yes! Let's get going."

The two walked out the front door, and after Isabella called goodbye to her mother and her mother shut the door, Phineas pulled the wings out and enlarged them.

Isabella laughed. "My hair is going to go everywhere."

"Nope." Phineas said. "These are upgraded." He slipped the wings on and created, quite literally, a force field around the two of them.

"Oooooh." Isabella said in an overly-exaggerated tone.

It took them all of five minutes to get to the restaurant.

"Uh… Chez Platypus?" Isabella asked.

"Yeah. It's a chain restaurant that Ferb and I originally started a couple years ago."

"Wait, that was you two?!"

"Uh-huh." Phineas replied. "It really is our family's go-to place to go out to eat." The two were silent for a minute as they both realized they were dressed like they were going on a date, about to walk into a fancy restaurant, and that neither of them were soulmates.

Finally, Phineas felt he had to say something. "Uh thanks for inviting me… even though it's technically my money and you also just kind of told me what we were doing— oh gosh that sounded rude. I didn't mean it like that, I just meant I'm glad to be here with you and you look really amazing— and I said that ages ago. Sorry!"

"It's okay because I've almost told you how amazing you look like six more times!" Isabella blurted, and then she went bright red and slapped her hands over her mouth.

Phineas could almost hear Ferb laughing in the background.

"Um…" he fumbled for a minute before finally coming up with something to talk about. "I hadn't really planned on what to get. Do you have a favorite food?"

"Most of my favorite dishes are Mexican." Isabella said. "Does the restaurant serve any Mexican food?"

"Um… I have no idea. I mean, we originally had food from all around the world, but the restaurant isn't in our hands anymore, so I can't say."

"Well let's go see." Isabella said, walking towards the door.

When the waiter noticed who they were, he gasped in delight. "Phineas Flynn! It's lovely to see you! What's the occasion?"

"My, uh— my friend and I are going to have dinner." Phineas said, gesturing to Isabella.

"Of course! Only the finest for the original founder!"

The two of them were lead towards the back of the restaurant and given a table by the window.

"You may order as soon as you're ready." The man said, walking off to serve other customers.

"They give you special treatment, huh?" Isabella asked.

"Yeah. There's a reason our family always comes here, you know." Phineas said. "Do you know how to order?"

"Um… to a waiter?"

"Nope!" Phineas called. He pressed a button on the table, and two menus with all options popped up. "Just press the one you want."

Fortunately, the menu options from around the world had not changed much, making Phineas a little embarrassed that he'd never checked before.

Isabella had waved him off before ordering pozole, while Phineas decided to play 'point my finger' and try something brand new. He ended up getting authentic Italian lasagna.

The food shot down from the tubes above the table, and the two dug in.

"Oh, yeah, this place was definitely made by you two." Isabella said, sounding very happy as she ate.

"I hope that's a compliment."

"Absolutely."

For the rest of the dinner, the two made small talk and ate until Isabella glanced at her watch and said she had to get home, in a disappointed voice.

"It's only 6:15." Phineas said. "We can get home pretty fast you know."

"I have rehearsal at 6:30 for the spring play." Isabella said. "I'm in Drama Club."

"Oh." Phineas said. He and Ferb were going to join the Drama Club in the fall, but it was too late to join mid-play. They walked up front, he paid with the $20 (they always gave him a discount) before taking Isabella back to her house. Her mother was waiting to take her to the school.

Phineas waved as the two drove off, smiling to himself at the whole evening that had passed.

"How was your date?" Ferb asked the second he opened the bedroom door.

"Shut up, Ferb." Phineas said, grabbing his sketchbook from his nightstand and collapsing onto his bed. "So whaddaya wanna do for lunch hour tomorrow?"


	10. Chapter 10

In English the following morning the air between Isabella and Phineas felt charged.

Her mother had teased her about her date all the way to school the night before, and Phineas had been the only thing on her mind during rehearsal. It had even caused her to mess up on her lines to the point where some people asked her if she was alright.

And now everyone could tell something was different between Phineas and Isabella.

Well, no. _Ferb_ could tell something was different. No one else. Isabella was only recently starting to realize how clueless their society was when it came to romance.

But the fact that he was the only one who noticed did not stop Ferb from giving both her and Phineas teasing smiles all throughout the period.

It definitely did not stop either of them from glaring back. And then noticing each other and blushing and looking away.

By the time lunch hour rolled around, even Katie was catching on that something was up.

"Hey, are you two okay?" she said, mainly to Isabella.

"FINE!" Isabella screamed, at the same time Phineas yelled "YEP!"

Suddenly everyone in the lunchroom was staring at them.

"Yep, they're hiding something." Buford deadpanned.

"What, no, why would we—"

"What would I possibly have to—"

"What is going _on_ with you two?" Katie asked.

Ferb was struggling to hold back laughter. "Oh, nothing. They're just _really_ bad at hiding their feelings."

" _Ferb!"_ both of them hissed to him at the same time.

Ferb laughed again.

Eventually people's attention traveled back to whatever they'd been focused on before, and Baljeet cleared his throat to draw the attention of the table to him. "So, mostly to change the topic from… whatever is going on between you two—" he gestured at Phineas and Isabella. "Is there any plan for today's lunch hour?"

"Yes, please tell us!" Isabella said, still a bit too loud.

"Uh, yeah, hang on." Phineas said, turning to his backpack and pulling out the latest invention, which was dessert related this time.

"What're you gonna do when you run out of parts of a meal?" Buford asked.

"We'll see." Phineas said with a grin, seeming to have calmed down a bit as hovering robot menus floated around to various tables, asking for which dessert people wanted.

In art, which was the class Isabella had right after lunch, along with Buford and Phineas, the two were focused on each other again, their gazes wandering, and both were finding it very hard to pay attention.

Luckily, Isabella's last two hours were Phineas-free, and Phineas had Robotics Club on Wednesdays, so she didn't have to worry about seeing him on the bus.

When Isabella got home, she grabbed her phone on a whim and texted Katie before she could really think about what she was doing.

' _Hey Katie, how would you feel if I dated someone other than my soulmate?'_

As soon as she sent it she regretted it. Where in the world had that come from? Since when was she dating Phineas? She had stressed so much last night that it was _not a date._

But, then again… wasn't it?

Katie replied: ' _Ha. Nice joke, Isabella.'_

And now she felt so much worse.

She grabbed her homework and sat at her desk, trying to focus on it. It wasn't working.

At 4PM Isabella noticed Phineas walking into his backyard across the street, and immediately felt like a stalker who was watching him. Like a creep. Like a stalker. Like a creepy stalker.

And then she climbed up and walked down the steps, out the door, and across the street, knocking on the gate only once before pushing it open.

Ferb was there too, and now she felt embarrassed that she hadn't noticed him earlier. He seemed to pick up on what was going on, though, because he quietly excused himself.

For several seconds the two stared at each other.

"Um… hi." Phineas said.

"So, are we going to talk?" Isabella asked. Might as well jump right to it.

"About what?"

"You know. About last night. Was it a date or not. About the way we've been staring at each other all day and now _everyone_ is noticing. How confusing this is, because we're not soulmates. About how we've known each other for less than a week. We're teenagers, and this could all disappear in like, 3 months so is it even worth seeing where this goes. And about how I kind of really want to see where this goes anyway because I've had my whole life planned out since I could read and this was not in the plan and it's really exciting and amazing and also kind of terrifying. And about how I've known you for _less than a week_ and know almost nothing about you aside from the facial image you show to the world. Do you even think a crush can form that quickly?"

"I don't know." Phineas said. He looked a little stunned. "I mean, they say your soulmate is love at first sight."

"That's bullshit." Isabella said, never having really believed so before now.

"Well…" Phineas said slowly. "If you really think you don't know me that well…" he walked over to the tree and sat down. "Ask me anything." He patted the seat next to him.

She hadn't been expecting that. With only a little hesitation, Isabella walked over and sat down, but it took her a minute to figure out what she wanted to ask.

When she couldn't come up with anything, she settled on: "Um, where did you move here from?"

"Downtown." Phineas said. "I mean, we kind of wanted to go to another school when we moved, and Mom and Dad wanted a break from city life. Oh, and of course my sister spent a ton of time in Danville because her soulmate was here, so she convinced Mom and Dad how great it was and this is where we moved."

"Oh, Candace Flynn and Jeremy Johnson!" Isabella realized. "Everyone knows that story."

"Yeah. That's my sister."

"Wow. I bet that can get annoying."

"All the time. I mean, it's not so much a problem at school, because we're known for other reasons, but I've lost count of how many times someone's walked up to me in the grocery store and said 'Hey, aren't you Candace Flynn's brother? Wow, you're so lucky!' or something like that. Or at least, that happens in this area. Not as much when we go on vacation, and _so_ much more in Danville than downtown."

"Why did you guys have to move to Danville anyway?"

"Uh." Phineas cleared his throat. "Ferb and I— blew up our house."

" _What?!"_

"Yeah, we're not that great with Chemistry, which can be a problem. We offered to fix it, but I think Mom thought we were joking. She got really irritated and sent us on a 'Everything Shopping Trip.' 'Cause, you know, everything was—"

"Yeah, yeah, I get it." Isabella said, and suddenly a new question popped into her mind. "Yesterday, at the library," she said, thinking back to how this had sparked her interest. "You said I was a friend, but you said it like that was a brand new thing. I mean, you had to have had friends before, right?"

"Uh, well…" Phineas muttered, and he sighed. "Not really."

Isabella stared at him. "You're telling me _you two_ weren't popular?"

"No, of course we were popular. But that's different. There were a bunch of people who _wanted_ to be friends with us, but mainly because they looked up to us. They viewed us more like… a goal or an amazing achievement or something than like actual people. There's a reason Ferb and I are so close. For most of our life, we were each other's only actual friends."

"Wow…" Isabella said. "Well, I guess I sort of ruined that for you." she said with a nervous chuckle.

"Yep. Now Ferb has more friends than I do, gosh darn it." He snapped his finger.

The two looked at each other for a minute.

"You wanna… ask me anything?" Isabella asked.

"Why did you say you had your whole life planned out since you could read?" Phineas asked.

Isabella bent down and pulled up her sleeve to reveal her name.

 _Taylor Turner._

She wasn't sure how she felt about that name anymore.

"We were gonna meet and compare the names on our wrists and stare longingly into each other's eyes, and then date approximately three months before getting married at an outdoor wedding so everyone could stop and see. Then we were going to have two children, one named Diego, and one named from his traditional background. We were gonna raise them to be good people and find their own soulmates and they were basically gonna repeat history and have really great lives. When I say I've had my whole life planned out since I could read, I mean _I have had my whole life planned out since I could read this name."_

Phineas blinked.

"And that's stupid. There's no room for spontaneity or adventure. I don't want my life to follow a script. I want to see what I can make of it." She looked over at Phineas. "You kinda… helped me realize that."

Phineas cheeks went red, and he chuckled. "Well, my motto is 'Carpe Diem'. It's kind of a given."

"What's 'Carpe Diem'?"

"It's Latin for 'seize the day.'"

Isabella laughed. "That sounds very much like you." She looked ahead, not looking him in the eyes, and sighed. "I mean it, Phineas Flynn. You were not in my perfect plan. You are very new and interesting and terrifying all at once. And somehow that's so much better than the idea of a soulmate."

It was silent for a couple seconds, and Isabella felt Phineas looking at her. Eventually he spoke.

"Alright, well you asked me more than one thing, so I'm gonna say I get one more question."

"Ask away."

Phineas swallowed. "Would you let me kiss you?"

Now Isabella looked at Phineas. "Yes."

And they did.


	11. Chapter 11

Phineas couldn't wipe the stupid grin off his face for the rest of the day. If anyone guessed why, they didn't mention it.

The following morning, Isabella and Phineas kept sneaking glances at each other, then looking quickly away. Which was no different than the previous morning, except this time they shared smiles before looking away blushing.

Thankfully, due to how romantically clueless society was, no one noticed anything new. Phineas was starting to wonder if they ever would.

But for now, both he and Isabella seemed content to not tell anyone anything.

Whether or not that was a good plan remained to be seen, but for now the two were brushing hands under the lunch table and ignoring questions from everyone who were still two steps behind.

Well, not everyone was two steps behind. As always, the ever-observant Ferb was almost a step ahead.

Many weeks passed in a similar manner, with Isabella and Phineas sneaking time to spend together, sometimes going to Chez Platypus, sometimes inventing with the inclusion of Ferb, and yes, sometimes they kissed (mostly alone in Isabella's room).

At this point they'd told their parents, and obviously Ferb knew. The one person Phineas was avoiding telling (aside from literally everyone else) was Candace.

Danville's own soulmate dream story.

Of course, he'd tried bringing the subject up to her many times— usually over text.

Phineas: Hey Candace, what would you do if Jeremy wasn't your soulmate?

Candace: He is.

Phineas: Yeah, but if he wasn't.

Candace: Where exactly are you going with this?

Phineas: Nothing, Candace.

And most of the conversations, face-to-face or no, went like that.

Eventually, he picked a day. _Christmas,_ he had thought to himself many times. _When she comes to visit for Christmas, I'll tell her._

And Christmas, as a result, seemed to suddenly have a personal mission get there somehow both incredibly quickly and incredibly slowly.

So it felt like both years later and days later that it was the last day before winter break— and lunch hour.

"No plans for today?" Katie asked at the table after almost all of lunch had come and gone.

"Yeah, every acquaintance we've got is gonna have to suck it up until after the holidays." Phineas said.

"Why only acquaintances?" Baljeet asked. He and Buford had become a regular presence at both their lunch table and in their backyard, along with sometimes the group of former Fireside Girls that Isabella called friends. "I mean, do we get special treatment as friends or something? It is not like you are going to build anything over break."

Phineas and Ferb burst into laughter. Everyone else at the table exchanged confused glances.

"What?" Buford asked.

"You've never seen how Phineas gets when we're off school." Ferb said with a grin.

"What do you mean?" Katie asked.

Phineas grinned too. "You know the stuff we do every lunch hour?"

" _No."_ Buford said sarcastically.

"Yeah, well picture that, with a whole day to do something instead of half an hour."

There was a couple seconds of stunned silence, and then Isabella laughed too. "I want to see your guys' idea of a Christmas party."

"Oh, you will, trust me."

And the following day, Candace and Jeremy arrived at the house.

 _Well… I don't have to tell her_ right away _, do I?_

"Phin, the longer you put it off, the harder it's going to be to tell her." Ferb warned.

"I know that." Phineas said, playing with his hands. "I just… I don't know, Ferb. It's not like I would tell anyone besides Candace, and maybe Jeremy. And it's Christmas."

"But this is the day you _picked."_

"I know!" Phineas groaned. "I'll— look, I'll tell her before she leaves. Promise."

Ferb sighed. "You say so."

Candace and Jeremy were staying in the guest room across from Phineas and Ferb's bedroom, so whenever Ferb actually _mentioned_ Isabella it had to be at a whisper in case either of them was listening.

Phineas, as promised, gave Isabella— well, everyone, but mostly Isabella— the Christmas party of all Christmas parties. It was held in their house on Christmas Eve while Linda and Lawrence had gone to pick up their grandparents, since they had already cleared with them having a Christmas party with their friends.

Jeremy, seeming to get that the party would be full of bust-worthy material, had dragged his wife away to go Christmas shopping for everyone, as she had yet to get anyone gifts.

So the party consisted of Phineas, Ferb, Isabella, Buford, Baljeet, Katie, Gretchen, and the rest of the Fireside Girls.

Needless to say, the house was still very full.

Robotic butlers brought everyone hot cocoa and Christmas cookies, and Christmas music played in the background. But of course, that did not qualify as a Phineas and Ferb Christmas Party™, so every fifteen minutes or so everyone was told to look out the window as the house had arrived at their next location.

They'd seen the location of the World War I Christmas Truce, they'd flown to Bethlehem, up to the North Pole, and various countries around the world to see different types of celebrations. Everyone brought swimsuits for Australia.

Everyone had a ton of fun, and there was a lot of laughter and stories shared and jokes made.

At one point, Phineas and Isabella disappeared upstairs, which had mysteriously become filled with mistletoe earlier that day.

Phineas and Isabella were slowly getting better at kissing. Their first kiss had been incredibly awkward, the kind Ferb would've laughed his head off at, despite the fact that obviously he had never kissed anyone before either.

Despite that, their first kiss had also set off fireworks that lasted as charged energy long after they broke apart, and now every time they kissed there were more.

The addition of mistletoe changed nothing.

When the house was finally placed back at its official location on Maple Drive, almost everyone waved goodbye and headed home to eat with their families. The 'almost' was from Isabella, whose mom had come over for dinner.

As Mrs. Garcia-Shapiro walked across the street, Candace and Jeremy and Linda and Lawrence arrived with both sets of grandparents. Everyone wandered in, although there were some confusing looks as to why Mrs. Garcia-Shapiro and Isabella were there.

Well… maybe Christmas Eve wasn't the greatest choice, but if he had to tell everyone eventually…

He ran the idea by his mother, and she agreed that she didn't think everyone would be together again soon.

And then Phineas told Isabella, who was nervous for him more than with him, because she already knew her mom was okay with it.

Phineas had no idea how to broach the subject, but luckily, he didn't have to, because Grandpa Clyde brought it up:

"So, is anyone going to tell us who these lovely ladies are and why they're here?" he asked.

Phineas looked briefly at Isabella, who gave a reassuring smile, and then took a breath. "Well, that's actually something I've been wanting to tell you guys." he said, and everyone's attention turned to him. Might as well say it fast, like ripping off a band-aid. "This is Isabella Garcia-Shapiro and her mom Vivian, and they're here for Christmas Eve dinner because Isabella is my girlfriend."

There was a couple seconds of silence while no one really seemed to get what he was saying. Finally Candace raised her eyebrows.

"Like, a practice round? I've never thought you were the type. I've certainly never heard of one coming over for dinner."

Phineas' anger flared up, and he paused and took a breath. "No, Candace, not a practice round. Also, Isabella has a _name,_ and she's sitting right there." It's not like he expected anyone to start praising them for going against society, but was a little common courtesy too much to ask?!

No one said anything again for a couple seconds until Candace spoke again. "Wait, you're telling me you two _like_ each other?"

Phineas summoned his courage and nodded.

There was another couple seconds of tense silence, and then Candace let out a short laugh. "Well that is about the worst joke I've heard in a long time."

"It's not a joke, Candace." Phineas said, staring at her.

"Oh, come on." Candace said, rolling her eyes. "You're going to take teenage infatuation over your _actual_ soulmate? No offense, but that's just plain stupid right there."

"Candace!" Linda gasped, but Phineas was already on his feet glaring at his sister.

"Look, just because you have the perfect soulmate story—"

"Oh, mine is perfect! So that gives you the freedom to date whoever you want, huh? Even some random bimbo you just picked up off the street?"

" _Candace Johnson!"_

Everyone jumped at the tone of voice Linda used, especially Candace, who turned to her mother in shock.

"You are being completely inappropriate! Isabella and her mother are sitting _right there_ and it is _Christmas Eve!_ Either check your attitude or leave the table!"

"Mom! You can't tell me you're okay with this!"

"As a matter of fact," Linda said, sitting down very pointedly next to Lawrence. "I am."

Candace blanched, seeming to finally realize what she'd just said.

Everyone was absolutely silent again.

"Well, I think that's lovely," Grandpa Reginald finally said to break the silence. He extended a hand across the table. "It's wonderful to meet you, Isabella."

"Thank you." Isabella said, looking more than a little embarrassed.

"Um, perhaps we should go—" Vivian started.

"Oh, absolutely not." Grandma Winifred said, and Grandpa Clyde and Grandma Betty Jo followed it up with a nod. "I need to get to know my grandson's girlfriend and her family."

Something in Phineas' chest loosened, and Ferb smiled at him from across the table.

Even so, the night still felt more or less like a disaster.

…

"Calm down, Phin, that went so much better than expected." Ferb said as Phineas kept repeatedly shoving the pillow in his face.

"Ferb! You did _see_ how Candace reacted, right?" He shoved the pillow on his face again. "That was an absolute disaster."

"What?"

"That was an absolute disaster!" Phineas screamed, yanking the pillow away again. "Ferb, they _left!"_

"Just the two of them. Besides, Jeremy just said she needed some time to calm down. It's not like Candace said she wanted to leave."

"She might have! Maybe Jeremy was just trying not to make things worse! And you know he would do that."

Ferb was quiet for a minute, because they both knew he would. "But all of our grandparents reacted really well." he said after the silence had lasted long enough. "Who cares what Candace thinks?"

"Well— I care! She's my sister! Maybe it's annoying with her being sort of famous and maybe she's being a real jerk right now, but I still care about her, a lot! If it comes down to picking between Candace and Isabella, I— I don't know what I'll do." He buried his head in his hands.

Ferb sighed, having no easy answer for this one. "Give her time. Maybe she'll come around." he said eventually.

Phineas said nothing, and after a while, he drifted off to sleep.


	12. Chapter 12

Isabella picked up almost immediately on her boyfriend's bad mood, and decided to give him a little space to work through this on his own.

That decision, however, did leave her a little lonely for someone to talk to about this problem, and she decided eventually that no matter how badly Phineas' reveal to Candace had gone and how terrifying it was, it was time for a reveal of her own.

"Uh… why are we all here, Isabella?" Adyson asked.

"Not that we don't enjoy your company, or each other's, or anything," Millie amended. "But we just saw you two days ago, and it's also the day after Christmas."

"Did we have to do this so early?" Ginger groaned.

Everyone gave her a look.

"Ginger, it's 2 in the afternoon." Holly said.

"Exactly! _Early."_ Ginger said, and yawned.

Isabella took a deep breath. "Sorry, girls. But this was something I needed to tell you all in person, because I have no idea how you'll react."

That earned her some curious looks.

Isabella took another deep breath, still trying to psych herself up. "Katie, remember when I asked you how you'd feel if I dated someone other than my soulmate?"

Katie chuckled. "Yeah. It was a good joke. But what does that have to do with—"

Isabella looked her straight in the eyes. "I was not kidding."

Katie stopped mid-sentence. "What?"

Isabella looked at each and every one of them in turn. "I am dating Phineas Flynn. It's not a practice round," she cut in as Gretchen opened her mouth. "I like him. And I intend to follow this through for a good long while." she blew out a breath as she finished. "Okay, go ahead."

" _What?!"_ Ginger said.

"You like someone other than your soulmate?" Gretchen asked.

"Is that even allowed?" Millie asked in amazement. "That's so cool!"

"Wait, it is?" Isabella asked in surprise.

" _Yeah."_ Katie exclaimed, as if it should have been obvious. "Come on, nothing exciting has happened romantically since, like, ever! You should've told us, we would've helped the two of you get together!"

"Aww, that would have been so much fun! Why didn't you tell us?" Holly asked.

"Wait, were you scared we would react badly?" Gretchen asked.

"Uh…" Isabella muttered.

"Oh, come on! I'd like to think we're more decent people than that!" Adyson exclaimed.

"Hey, I had a good reason to think that!" Isabella protested. "Candace reacted really badly, and she's Phineas' sister!"

"Wait, Candace? Candace Flynn? _She_ reacted badly?" Holly asked. "Are you talking about the Candace Flynn I'm thinking of? _She's_ Phineas' sister?"

Isabella sighed. "Yeah." she explained the way things had gone two nights ago, leaving the others blinking in shock.

Yeah, she'd kind of expected that. The whole lot of them had been guilty of kind of seeing Candace Flynn as an idol. To be honest, Isabella wouldn't have been surprised if one of them called her a liar.

Isabella wasn't entirely sure how that night had made her feel, but she felt she could safely say Candace was not an hero of hers anymore.

"Woah…" Holly said. "That… is seriously awful."

"Yeah." Millie said. "Geez, Isabella, I'm sorry that happened."

"I am too." Isabella sighed. "I'm just trying to give Phineas some space because he seems pretty upset about it. But that left me wanting someone to talk to."

"Yeah, I can see why." Adyson said.

"So… what are we gonna do?" Katie asked.

"Huh?"

"How are we gonna cheer him up?" Katie said, as the other girls nodded excitedly.

"Oh, um, I hadn't really…" but Isabella stopped a second later because she realized she _did_ have a plan. She turned to the others with a grin. "Okay, here's what we're gonna do…"

…

"Remind me why exactly this would cheer up Phineas?" Gretchen asked.

"Because he said he and Ferb finally hooked up the stuff to allow them to get ice cream from the moon, but they haven't gotten a chance to use it 'cause it's Christmas and cold." Isabella said, turning on another space heater. "So we're gonna make it really hot in here, and Ferb's gonna set up an indoor beach while we go get the ice cream. Sound good?"

"Hmm, yeah, that sounds like it'll work." Katie said.

"And I'm already sweating, so that part of the plan's working," Ginger groaned.

"Oh, quit complaining." Holly said, rolling her eyes. "This'll be fun."

"Okay, someone go get Ferb." Adyson said.

"I'll do it!" Millie called, and ran off as everyone else gathered in the center of the living room. Ferb came downstairs and raised an eyebrow when he saw all the space heaters and window blocking (with blankets) and other things they'd implemented to heat up the house.

"What is going on?" he asked.

Isabella briefly explained what the plan was, and Ferb admitted that yeah, it was a good idea and would probably work. He showed them how to safely get to the moon and back, and said he would need most people to stay back and help set up the lower floor of the house.

Millie, Gretchen, Adyson, Holly, and Ginger (reluctantly) volunteered, leaving Katie and Isabella to go see the moon.

"Woah…" Katie said, looking around. "I didn't know there was grass on the moon!"

"Phineas said it's because of the cows, and photosynthesis." Isabella said, as the two walked over to the outpost where the ice cream was to be handmade.

"You ever made ice cream before?" Katie asked.

"It's not supposed to be that hard." Isabella said with a shrug. "We just need to get the bowls out of the freezer—"

"What?"

"That's step one. Freeze the bowls. We get the bowls out of the freezer and use the premade eggs—" she held up the bowl of eggs— "to make the custard. Then we churn it and freeze it."

Katie exhaled and rubbed her hands together. "Okay, let's do this."

The making of the ice cream took a little less than forty minutes, with both Katie and Isabella looking outside every now and then to see the masses of stars visible with no atmosphere. Or rather a limited one, since the moon had started creating a atmosphere in recent years (and now Katie and Isabella knew why).

When they arrived back at the Flynn-Fletcher house on the earth (with _pounds_ of ice cream carried by mechanical hands), the indoor beach was set up. It seemed like the house was much bigger, and it looked like an actual beach with an ocean (and walls), and it was sweltering. Apparently Dr. Who came in handy often, because although the walls of the actual house were still there, they were now far enough apart to hold a beach, despite still being connected at the corners. Isabella didn't want to look at them too long or her eyes hurt. Millie handed her and Katie their swimsuits with a sing-song call of "teleporters!"

Katie and Isabella handed off the ice cream and went to change into swimsuits, and when they came back Ferb went upstairs to get Phineas. It seemed to take some convincing, but about ten minutes later Phineas came downstairs. When he saw everything, he stopped and blinked at it.

"Uh… what's going on?" he asked.

"SURPRISE!" everyone yelled.

"We're trying to cheer you up!" Millie called. "Is it working?"

"What—"

"Here." Ferb said, handing Phineas a swimsuit. "Go put it on and then it's ice cream time."

"Ice cream? What exactly is going on here—"

"Uph uph uph. Swimsuit." He shoved Phineas into the downstairs bathroom and shut the door after him.

When Phineas came out a couple minutes later he was wearing his swimsuit, and… holy _cow._

While Isabella was trying very hard not to stare he walked directly over to her. "Was this your idea?" he asked.

"Yes." Isabella replied, more than a little proud, but also smiling sweetly.

Phineas smiled back. "Thank you." he said, and he gave her a kiss on the forehead, and Isabella smiled, glad to have successfully cheered up her boyfriend.

And _man,_ did he look _fantastic_ in that swimsuit…

"Um, Earth to Isabella, stop drooling and come join us at the fake beach." came Gretchen's voice.

"Wha— huh?"

"You were staring at your boyfriend." she smirked. "Lost in Phineas-Land?"

"Phine-what?"

"How about that's what we call it?" Gretchen asked, raising a teasing eyebrow. "You coming swimming or not?"

Isabella smirked back at her, and the two walked over to the fake beach that was somewhere over by the kitchen (except the kitchen was really far away now).

Sitting just far enough from the ocean that it wouldn't get wet was a giant ice cream sundae, just like the one Isabella had first seen in Phineas and Ferb's backyard.

The second Phineas saw it he burst out laughing. When Isabella walked up beside him he grinned over at her. "It's December 26!"

"You said you hadn't gotten a chance to use it yet," Isabella pointed out. "So this is your chance." She gestured around her at the fake beach that was just as hot as a real one.

"You're amazing." Phineas said, looking much happier than he had that morning.

"Hey, thank Ferb for the beach, I just turned on a couple of space heaters."

"I'm thanking _you,_ for trying so hard to cheer me up. You're amazing."

"Wow, I can hear the acknowledgment." came Ferb's voice. "No one appreciates beaches anymore, I get it." He turned away and crossed his arms in mock pouting.

Phineas grinned at Isabella, and then reached over and swept Ferb's legs out from under him. While Ferb was attempting to recover from landing hard on the ground, Phineas grabbed his legs and dragged him into the ocean, where an incoming wave shoved him back further up the beach, right into the ice cream sundae.

Ferb was the only one not amused as he shoved himself out of the giant sundae dish. "Okay, your turn." he said.

Phineas eyes widened, and he tried to run away, but Ferb grabbed him and threw him over his shoulder, then promptly shoved him into the sundae.

And that was how the sundae became less something to eat and more a giant food fight.

Handfuls were quickly shoved into mouths by people who wanted to eat any, and then other fistfuls of ice cream were grabbed and thrown all over the place. By the time anyone stopped for a breath, _everyone_ was _coated_ in ice cream.

"Who made this?" Phineas asked, cleaning off his hands in the ocean.

Isabella and Katie raised their hands.

"It is very sticky." Phineas said with a laugh. "And now… we should probably clean up before Mom and Dad come home and see what we've done to the house."

Everyone cast a glance around at the sand, ice cream, and salt water now covering the main floor.

"Yeah… that's probably a good idea." Gretchen admitted.

Luckily for them, the cleanup didn't take long at all— at least once Phineas and Ferb rigged up a robot that did all the work for them, as well as cleaning off all the ice cream.

The former Fireside Girls all gathered their winter gear and headed back to their homes, waving goodbye as they went. Isabella remained behind for a minute after them.

Phineas turned to her as Ferb went back up the (now back to normal) stairs. "Thank you, Isabella." he said.

"You already said that."

"I know. I'm saying it again. And I'll also say that you're amazing. Once again. You're amazing."

"Thank you." Isabella said, and she was blushing just a bit.

"And thank you for cheering me up, too."

"Oh, it's official?"

"Yep. I am _officially_ cheered up."

"Good." Isabella said, pressing a quick kiss to his lips. Her smile shrank. "And I'm sorry about your sister. I hope things work out."

"Me too." It was quiet for a second.

"Hey, you want to go to the ball drop at Times Square on New Years Eve?" Phineas asked.

"Wouldn't we have already had to have planned that?"

Phineas raised an eyebrow.

"Oh. Of course not. Yeah, I'm definitely willing if you are."

"Perfect. We can work out the details tomorrow?"

"It's a date." The two shared one more quick kiss and Isabella shrugged on her coat, walking out the door and waving until Phineas shut said door, then walking across the street.

She was already planning what to wear to the ball drop…

 **A/N: Why did everyone else react so overwhelmingly positively while Candace reacted so poorly? You will have to wait and see.**


	13. Chapter 13

_Rose Bullock._

The name glared angrily up at Phineas from his wrist, and he wished he could scrub it away.

But there was no way to get the name off for good without taking a knife to his wrist, and not only was that borderline suicidal, it was much too extreme.

He still hated the name with a passion— one that had admittedly only formed after meeting Isabella Garcia-Shapiro.

But he felt that was a good reason, when he was thinking about it.

And when he wasn't thinking about it.

"Okay." he said aloud. "So how do I do this again?"

Linda chuckled and picked up the beauty blender. "You pat it on." she said, and Phineas held his arm out awkwardly as she showed him what she was talking about. "Got it?"

"Uh-huh." Phineas said, taking the concealer from his mother and finishing the job. "How's that?"

"It'll pass. Sharpie time."

Phineas picked up the sharpie and wrote out in careful, official-looking letters: Isabella Garcia-Shapiro.

"And how does that look?" Phineas asked, turning to face his father and brother.

Ferb bent in close and looked at Phineas' wrist. "Convincing." he said with a grin.

Phineas grinned right back.

"You two have fun." Lawrence said with a smile. "And you have to get going soon if you're going to make it to the nearest ball drop."

"Yeah, I guess we would have to…?" Phineas said in in confusion. He glanced at Ferb, and he shrugged.

"Alright, well I'm off." Phineas said, heading out the front door.

"Make sure you have your sweatshirt and coat!" Ferb called.

"Yeah, thanks Mom." Phineas said, rolling his eyes and glancing over his shoulder.

"It's going to be cold in New York." Ferb said, crossing his arms.

"I can handle it, Ferb." Phineas said.

"Oh, stop teasing your brother about New York and let them go, or they're going to be late."

"Uh, Mom? You do know we're actually going to New York, right?"

"Of course, dear." Linda said, with a strange-looking smile of an emotion Phineas couldn't pin down. If he didn't know better, he'd say it was sarcasm. "Have fun."

"Uh… okay Mom." Phineas said, walking out and waving as his mom shut the door. He walked across the street and knocked on the door.

Isabella opened it a second later. She was wearing a sweatshirt and sweatpants, covered by a winter coat.

"Is that all you're wearing?" Isabella asked in surprise. Phineas was wearing solely a long sleeved shirt.

"Nah, my clothes are in the pocket inside the wings." He pulled the wings out of his pocket and enlarged them, slipping them on. "It's just hard to fly these things with any bulky clothes on."

"Oh, okay." Isabella said.

"Oh, and, this is gonna be a longer flight, so…" Phineas hit a newly installed button that extended to the side, giving a place for Isabella to be attached to.

"Oh, are you not strong enough to carry me all the way to New York?" Isabella asked, making a pouty face.

Phineas snorted. "Not quite, I'm afraid."

"Do I need to take my coat off?"

"Nope, that's just me."

Isabella climbed into the straps and Phineas, after making sure she was ready, took off into the sky. He caught Ferb smirking at him in the window just before he did so.

"You look good, by the way." Phineas said as he soared into the clouds.

"Please. I'm not wearing anything fancy."

"Yeah, because it's cold where we're going. You still look good."

He thought he saw Isabella blushing. "Thank you. So do you."

"I'll look even better once I put on my year old sweatshirt."

Isabella laughed.

Phineas, once they were at proper flying altitude, hit another new button on the side of the straps for him.

And out of a speaker came Ferb's voice.

" _Fly north east for approximately 45 minutes."_

Isabella burst out laughing. "Ferb is the GPS?" she asked.

Phineas grinned. "I figured his voice was annoying enough to qualify. And we can't exactly track miles, so I did time instead."

"Every time we use these things you've added improvements." Isabella said, grinning at the GPS.

"That's my style. If I keep an invention long term you can bet it won't stay the same for long. So I guess technically, I don't keep any long term." he chuckled.

A cold wind was blowing, and Phineas blew a breath out of his mouth and rubbed his arms in an attempt to warm up.

"Are you cold?" Isabella asked.

"Yeah. The bulky clothes part is the next thing to change."

"Do you want me to fly for a while?"

"Oh, no, I got it."

"Phineas, you need a chance to warm up. Besides, I want to fly the wings eventually."

"Well… okay. But let me show you how it works first."

Phineas flew down to land, not sure what state they were in, as Ferb's voice told them: " _You need to get back in the air if you ever want to get to the destination."_

Phineas gave Isabella several lessons and tips including how to turn, take off, speed up, slow down, and land, and then Isabella took off her coat and sweatshirt and tucked them into the pocket on the back of the wings. Phineas put his on as she did that and strapped himself into the passenger side.

"Alright. Isabella Garcia-Shapiro is taking flight." Isabella said, and she took off… much too fast.

"Woah, slow down, slow down!" Phineas said, waving his arms frantically and suddenly they stopped in midair, with a large jolt from momentum.

"Sorry!" Isabella called, and tried again. After a few minutes she got the hang of it.

Phineas looked down at her wrist and smiled. Then he looked back up at her. After a second she noticed.

" _I like your soulmate."_ Phineas whispered.

Isabella had painted over _Taylor Turner_ just like he had painted over his own name. That was something the two of them had planned together, since they planned to kiss at midnight.

Isabella looked down at Phineas' own wrist. " _I like yours too."_ she whispered back.

The two blushed right at each other, which caused them to laugh a second later.

" _Turn east and fly for about ten minutes."_ came Ferb's voice. " _By some miracle you'll be there on time."_

Isabella laughed again. "Man, you really nailed him, Phineas." she said. "It's like he's the sarcastic GPS everyone's already wanted."

"Yep, that's what I was aiming for. Nice to know I hit the mark."

"Does Ferb know?"

"Maybe."

"He _doesn't?_ "

It was Phineas' turn to laugh. "Of course not. He'd kill me."

Isabella laughed once more as the GPS told them to start flying down now and they should end up right above Times Square at 10:00 PM. They would have a little bit of time to wander and shop.

And right as they started to descend, Isabella in the wings slipped to the side and flew them both right through a cloud.

They both came out laughing. "Okay, maybe I need a little more practice." Isabella said with a grin.

They landed five minutes later right outside the Hershey's Store.

And that pretty much set their tone for the entire night. They both ate enough chocolate to make them sick, Phineas bought Isabella a shirt she was eyeing which Isabella immediately went to go put on, and Phineas managed to get them both over to Guitar Center so they could browse for a while (he hadn't brought quite _that_ much money).

At 11:30 they had long since gotten to a good place to see the ball drop (or as good as it could be considering they'd gotten there at 10 at night).

At 11:59 the ball was dropped and everyone started counting down from 60.

At '30' Isabella whirled to him. "Phineas. The cloud."

"Huh?" he asked.

"I flew through a cloud." She grabbed at her coat's sleeve and pulled it up to reveal a lot of smudged makeup. "Clouds are made of water."

Phineas realized what she was saying and pulled up his own wrist to reveal more smudged makeup of his own.

"Now what?" Isabella asked.

Phineas looked up at her for a second. Then he pulled his sleeve back down. "Well, I see no necessary change in plans." he said. "They're easily covered up."

Isabella looked down at her own name and smiled. Then she pulled her own sleeve down.

"Five! Four! Three! Two! One!"

As everyone around them cheered and the ball hit the ground, Phineas and Isabella kissed, real names and all.

 **A/N: I am aware that my publishing is more than a little sporadic and doesn't follow any real schedule. I am just putting this here to let everyone know that it is going to be a little longer than normal before the next chapter is published. The next couple weeks of my life are going to get very busy and I don't think I can handle keeping up with this story along with everything that's coming up. In about two weeks I should be back to my regular "schedule" of sorts, and I apologize that this announcement is so sudden. Thanks for reading my story and I promise I will be back to publishing soon.**


	14. Chapter 14

Buford and Baljeet, when they were finally told that Phineas and Isabella were dating, barely gave it a passing thought, because at that point that had pretty much figured out that was what was going on and were okay with it. (Although Baljeet had been a little weirded out at first, and it took Buford explaining to him how and why to _get over it_ for him to, well, get over it.)

So the remaining few days before going back to school were spent playing in the snow and drinking hot chocolate.

Katie was asking when Phineas and Isabella were going to tell everyone they dating— and by everyone, she meant _everyone._

Isabella and Phineas exchanged a nervous glance when she said that, and Isabella said they weren't sure. After all, they only been dating a couple months, and their relationship was not exactly standard. Phineas muttered something under his breath about Candace, and Isabella grabbed his hand.

Katie seemed to get what they meant, and backed off.

The best part of the break had been the ball drop. Isabella was reminiscing about their midnight kiss the night before she went back to school.

Then she woke up the next morning with her dream still on her mind. She brought it up to Phineas on the bus.

"So there was this whole society of people who dated people other than their soulmate, and obviously we were a part of it, but then the government came and tried to split everyone up—"

"So basically you dreamed a dystopian novel." Phineas said, raising an eyebrow from where he was sitting next to her.

"Well, yeah pretty much. But I mean, they also gave everyone chihuahuas, and I had to explain to them that I already had a chihuahua, and it just took a weird turn. But my point—"

"Because there is one." Ferb muttered from across the isle.

"Shut up, Ferb." She lowered her voice. "My point is that we cannot be the only people _ever_ to date someone besides their soulmate. There have to be others."

"Huh." Phineas mused. "I guess that's true. I mean, I've never heard of anyone. Maybe we should do some research?"

"Already done." Isabella said, pulling out her phone. "It's not common, obviously, and it's not exactly looked upon well… again, obviously. But here." she passed the phone over. "There's two people named Stephanie and Danielle West. They run a blog."

"A blog?" Phineas asked as he took the phone.

"Yeah, it's all about what it's like to live with someone other than their soulmates. They married each other and they love each other, and they chose not to find their soulmates at all."

"That's a lot of hate comments." Phineas muttered as he scrolled down the page. "Oh, accept for someone named cutiepie47–"

"Yeah, that's me." Isabella said. "I figured a little positivity for those two would be nice."

Ferb snorted. "Your username is 'cutiepie47?'" he asked.

"Shut it, Hair Dye."

"Ooh, that hurts."

Isabella had written a comment that morning: 'Thank you for being such an inspiration to me. I am dating someone other than my soulmate and it's wonderful to know we're not alone in the world!'

Phineas appeared to be reading it from the way his cheeks were turning red, which caused Isabella to blush too, which caused Ferb to laugh. "You two are adorable." he said.

"Ferb!" they both hissed.

Phineas seemed to collect himself and then turned back to Isabella. "Well, that's actually really cool. Nice find, Isabella." He passed the phone back.

Isabella smiled as she took it. Then suddenly, her phone _dinged_ and she glanced back down.

"Oh my goodness! They responded!" Isabella said in shock.

"Huh?" Phineas asked.

"Stephanie and Danielle responded! They responded to my comment!"

"Wait, really? What'd they say?"

Isabella looked back down at the phone and read the response out.

"'Thank you for the kind words. It is so refreshing to know that we inspired you. Best of luck to you and your significant other, and I hope you spend your life with the one you love, whoever that turns out to be!'"

Both Isabella's and Phineas' faces were bright red again. Ferb laughed once more as well, and then the bus pulled into the high school.

"I just can't believe I never asked Mom and Dad about any of this stuff before." Phineas said as another bubble solidified into a beach-like-ball bounced off the top of Buford's head.

Buford let out a cry of frustration and swatted at all the bubbles near his head until they bounced farther away from him and towards the rest of the lunchroom.

"What exactly was the purpose of this invention?" Baljeet asked, swatting away a bubble-ball of his own.

Katie smirked. "It's to annoy those two, isn't it?" she asked, gesturing to Baljeet and Buford.

Phineas gasped in mock shock. " _No,_ we would _never."_

"Sometimes you two are my least favorite people." Buford grumbled, whacking another bubble-ball away and stabbing at some of his peaches.

"But I mean, seriously," Phineas continued. "Mom and Dad have been married for the majority of my life. And I've never been fond of soulmates. I guess it just never crossed my mind."

"You have never liked soulmates?" Baljeet asked. "Why?"

Phineas shrugged. "I dunno, really. Just never liked the idea, or something."

"But that brings up a good point." Katie said. "When you two inevitably meet your soulmates, how would they feel about the two of you— you know." she lowered her voice. "Dating and possibly marrying someday."

"Woah, woah, WOAH!" Isabella interrupted.

"Yeah, who said _anything_ about— that? That is a long way off!" Phineas agreed.

"I'm just saying." Katie said with a shrug.

"Well, frankly, _if_ we get to that point," Isabella said, "I don't care what the two of them want to do. They can marry each other."

"I don't know, Isabella." Katie said uneasily. "You might want to take a little bit of a _gentler_ approach than that. They have spent their whole life thinking they're going to marry you two. They'll probably be pretty surprised to find out that might not happen."

Isabella sighed. "I guess you're right." She paused. "Hey, what if we ask Stephanie and Danielle?"

"Who?" Buford asked, raising an eyebrow.

"They're these people that run a blog." Isabella pulled out her phone again where the blog was still up, and gently nudged away a bubble-ball that was bumping against the side of her head. "Here." She handed her phone to Katie who passed it around. She didn't say aloud what the blog was; she didn't want to tempt fate, even though the lunchroom was loud enough to cover most conversation. "I mean, they responded to my comment, so I don't think they'd mind to hear from me again."

"But it specifically talks about how they chose not to look for…" Katie paused. "The dinosaur bones because they deemed it too dangerous!" she said loudly, so people at nearby tables glanced over.

Ferb groaned and slapped his forehead. "You all really need to get better at lying." he muttered.

"Yeah, well that doesn't mean the dinosaur bones didn't look for them." Phineas said dryly. "That's probably what'll end up happening to us down the road. It'd be nice to have some kind of advice, maybe we should talk to them."

"Here, I'll send a private message." Isabella said as the phone came back around the table to her.

She typed: ' _Thank you so much for responding, that was a surprise! We're wondering if you guys ever came across your soulmates and how you handled that situation.'_

She hit 'send' and put her phone back in her pocket.

And the rest of the lunch went fairly normally— with the addition of the bubble-balls. They made small-talk and ate the horrible school cafeteria food and played on their phones.

But for the rest of the school day Isabella was hyper-focused in on her phone, waiting for it to vibrate, so much so that she missed most of what the rest of her teachers said. And, as a result, when she got home and there was still no reply she was a little disappointed.

She put her phone down on her desk and started her homework, wondering if maybe she had come off as rude?

But those fears were flipped completely on their head when her phone buzzed with a reply.

The first thing she saw was: 'We were hoping you wouldn't ask that.'

Oh, boy.

 **A/N: Thanks for your patience.**


	15. Chapter 15

_We were hoping you wouldn't ask that._

 _Truth is, we did end up getting approached by our soulmates. Neither of us wanted to think about that possibility until I finally realized as we were getting out of college and getting serious that it would happen eventually._

 _We went back to our apartment the afternoon I brought it up and talked everything out— how we would react if they showed up, what we would say, how we would be respectful._

 _Unfortunately, that's not what happened. Danielle's soulmate arrived first, and she was shocked when she heard Danielle did not want to marry her instantly._

 _She spent a couple weeks trying to convince Danielle that she was making a horrible mistake, and eventually Danielle couldn't take it anymore, and blew up at her pretty massively. She came home that night crying and told me how guilty she felt._

 _The next morning I went to talk to her soulmate and try and explain things from my perspective, only to find that she had tracked down my soulmate and brought him there. That made the whole situation a lot worse than it already was._

 _I was_ so _angry. I was disgusted that someone would try a dirty trick like that, and solely because they wanted a soulmate. At least, that was what I thought she was doing. It's also possible she was simply caught off guard and scared, and she was looking for backup._

 _I didn't see it that way. I ended up making an ultimatum that they had to leave by the end of the day, or Danielle and I would instead._

 _Danielle was… pretty upset about that._

…

 _Yeah, that's an understatement._

 _The last thing Stephanie expected (and the last thing she wanted) had been for her soulmate to show up too._

 _When she came home, she spilled the whole story to me (very angrily), and I wasn't happy she'd said something like that without talking to me first. My trust was already pretty shaken with the news that my soulmate had gotten Stephanie's soulmate. But then Stephanie told me what she'd said and I felt like I'd been lied to. Emotions, particularly anger, ran high, and the two of us ended up screaming at each other._

 _Eventually we both stormed off, Stephanie to her room, and me out for a walk._

 _While I was out I ran into my soulmate, again. I tried to calm myself and explain things, but my soulmate, to put it bluntly… tried to seduce me. I won't describe_ that _conversation, but I will say that it ended with me punching her in the face and running away._

 _I ended up, of all places, in a coffee shop. The cliché location for the meeting of soulmates. I ended up having a very good,_ entirely _hypothetical conversation with a waiter, and he helped me realize many things._

 _I went home to talk to Danielle, and it turned out she had spent much of the day thinking as well. We both apologized to each other in depth, realized it had been a stupid argument in the first place, and promised to go talk to our soulmates the following morning, explain everything to both of them (hopefully better than the last time we'd tried that). We agreed if they still wouldn't listen, we would have to find other measures._

…

 _As for my side of the story, I had indeed spent much of the day thinking. I called my mother and talked everything over with her, and she helped me see some things from different angles. When Danielle came back, I explained how shocked I was to see my soulmate show up, and apologized for not taking her feelings into account._

 _The following morning, we both went to talk to our soulmates._

 _And mine took it really well. He seemed to understand my feelings and even admitted he'd had a "practice round" before that he broke up with, but they both felt sad to leave. In the end, he gave me a firm handshake and wished me luck._

 _Danielle's soulmate did not take it so well. In fact, she made a massive scene in the middle of the restaurant we'd chosen to meet them in. The manager came and took us all out to the back of the restaurant, because she seemed to get that we needed some privacy. We continued our conversation that was really just Danielle's soulmate screaming at us. We just kind of stood there taking it. Eventually Danielle's soulmate burned herself out and stormed off in anger._

 _Danielle went after her and I let her go. She told me later that she explained everything once again and told her if she had a problem with it she could leave, and that after her behavior there was already no chance of the two of them ever working out._

 _Danielle's soulmate left the following morning and we haven't seen either of them since._

 _If Danielle and I had any advice for you when you meet your soulmates, it would be to plan for every situation and reaction you can think of, keep in mind your feelings for each other, and exercise a lot of patience, because I promise you you're going to need it._

 _Good luck. Just like I said last time, I hope you two get everything you want out of life._


	16. Chapter 16

"Wow." Phineas said as Isabella finished.

"Yeah." Isabella replied nervously. "That didn't exactly make me feel optimistic about meeting my soulmate. Or their reaction."

"No, I guess it wouldn't." Phineas muttered. "Geez, I guess we just have to hope we get people like Stephanie's soulmate and not like Danielle's."

"Yeah, but what are the chances of that?" Isabella sighed.

"Depends on a lot of things." Ferb said from where he was leaning against the kitchen counter. "Culture, parents, siblings, friends, mental health, emotional health, socioeconomic status probably, hobbies—"

"Yeah, uh, we get it." Phineas interrupted. He sighed, then clenched his fists in determination. "Well, I'm not one to let bad things affect me. So I say we move on from this, make a plan, and handle our soulmates when the problem arises."

Isabella smiled a little. "As long as we do make the plan, I'm okay with that."

The rest of the afternoon was spent making that very plan. Various people took turns acting as the soulmates and brought up many different possible reactions until they had responses for all of them.

And then they were very suddenly interrupted by all three of their phones going off at once.

"Uh… Baljeet is calling me." Ferb said.

"I have Katie." Isabella said.

"Buford."

All three of them met eyes as they seemed to realize something was happening.

They all answered and put their phones on speaker…

And three voices came out at once, all very loudly.

"Okay, okay _stop!"_ Phineas yelled. "What is going on?"

Everyone quieted down for a second before Katie spoke. "Buford blew it."

"Hey!" Buford snapped from Phineas' phone.

"It is true!" Baljeet yelled. "You were the one who—"

"Oh, _I_ was the one who. Katie was the one who started the conversation!"

"Yeah, because we were talking about a _present._ You were the one talking so freakishly _loud_!" Katie shot back.

The three of them began to yell at each other again, and Phineas, Ferb, and Isabella all exchanged exasperated looks.

Isabella spoke up this time. "Um, guys? Can you stop arguing about who's fault lies where and just _tell_ us what happened?"

And just like that, everyone shut up. They waited about ten seconds before Ferb groaned. "For God's sake, somebody say _something."_

"I thought we didn't want them to say anything." Phineas muttered.

Ferb shot him a look.

"Sorry, couldn't help myself."

"We think someone knows Phineas and Isabella are dating." Katie said.

Then it got quiet on their side of the line.

"What do you mean?" Phineas said eventually.

"I was talking about a present to get for Isabella's birthday— because it always takes me a couple months to come up with a good one— and I mentioned I wanted to get something that sort of represented the two of you—"

"And Buford was being remarkably loud." Baljeet cut in.

"Hey!"

"And at some point we heard someone's gasp and then when we looked someone was running away." Katie finished. "And none of us know who it was."

" _None of you_ got even a _glimpse?"_ Ferb asked in disbelief.

"Well, they were wearing a hoodie and we never heard their voice, so…" Katie mumbled something that Phineas couldn't make out.

He looked over at Isabella.

"If it is anyone even remotely into gossip, I would bet you half the school knows by now. The other half will know in ten minutes." Isabella said miserably.

"And if they're not into gossip?"

Isabella bit her lip. "Then everyone will know by tomorrow instead."

Phineas sighed.

"We could try the alarm clock?" Ferb suggested.

Phineas and Isabella looked at each other and seemed to reach the same conclusion. "No." they said simultaneously.

"You know what? Let them tell people. Let's see where this one takes us." Phineas said.

"Yeah." Isabella said with a smile. "I'm with you on that one."

"Alright." Ferb said with a shrug. "But Buford's gonna get it in lunch hour tomorrow."

"Hey!"

"Oh, most definitely." Phineas said with a smirk present in his voice though unseen by Buford himself.

…

When Phineas told his parents what had happened at dinner, they were understandably concerned.

"Are you two going to be okay? I know you weren't going to tell anyone for a while." Lawrence remarked.

"We're fine, Dad." Phineas replied easily. "It, uh… it's probably not going to be easy, but we can handle it."

"You two are special." Linda said with a smile. "And if anyone bothers you, your brother will take care of them."

Phineas' mouth fell open. "Mom!"

"Yeah I will." Ferb said at the same time.

Phineas couldn't help but wonder if that 'anyone' included his sister.

He shook that thought from his head as quickly as it entered it.

"No matter what," he muttered. "I have to admit I'm not exactly looking forward to going to school tomorrow."

"And the day after that, and that, and that…" Ferb mumbled under his breath.

Phineas shot him a glare, while Linda raised an amused eyebrow.

"I'm just saying."

"I think you two are mature and intelligent enough that you'll do fine." Lawrence said.

"I agree." Linda said with a smile. "Though I wouldn't be surprised if tomorrow wasn't the best day."

"We still gonna annoy Buford tomorrow?" Phineas asked, mostly to change the subject.

"Absolutely. Maybe not a lunch. That might send an image we don't want."

"That's fair." Phineas said with a shrug. Then he smiled, a hint of deviousness to it that worried even Linda. "I have an idea."

…

Buford, as it turned out, did not find it easy to sleep when he was teleported to the roof of his house in nothing but a pair of boxers in the beginning of January.


	17. Chapter 17

"I th-think you g-gave me hypothermia." Buford said, shivering in a thick sweatshirt and sweatpants, as well as a winter coat.

"Oh, you're fine." Phineas said. "If it was becoming in any way dangerous to your health you would have appeared back inside." He closed his locker as Isabella hid a laugh behind her hand.

"And d-did you send B-Baljeet or K-K-Katie to their roofs?" Buford grumbled.

Isabella shrugged with an innocent smile.

Buford grumbled again.

It was much easier to ignore the looks sent her and Phineas' way if they were teasing Buford rather than stare at the ground and avoid each other all morning.

"So what are you going to do?" came Katie's voice next to Isabella's ear.

Isabella looked around at the large group of people standing around Phineas and Ferb's lockers— Buford, Baljeet, Ferb, Gretchen, Katie, Millie, Ginger, Adyson, Holly, and of course Phineas. When she met gazes with Phineas they both smiled.

"We're gonna own it." she said.

When Phineas walked over he and Isabella linked hands and intertwined fingers, then walked down the hallway.

Many stares were shot their way, and the two ignored them fairly well until they made it to Mrs. Edelson's room.

Stares were given as they walked down the aisles to their seats too, and Mrs. Edelson herself gave a surprised look at them holding hands.

No one looked away from them until Mrs. Edelson eventually cleared her throat and started class.

Obviously the teachers wouldn't have known in the same way the students did— not many students gossiped to the teachers. So over the course of the day Isabella (and probably Phineas as well) got many surprised looks from her various teachers, usually followed by disapproval or concern.

The students were a whole other story. They ranged from confusion or bafflement (at best) to fury or disgust (at worst).

But still no one said a word.

…Until lunch.

Phineas and Ferb both started getting the necessary things for the lunchtime activity they had planned (in complete and very uncomfortable silence), when someone screamed from across the room:

"Are you two really dating?!"

Isabella couldn't tell exactly who'd spoken, but it didn't really matter— everyone had been thinking it.

All eyes turned to them, and Isabella grabbed Phineas' hand under the table— mostly out of instinct.

Phineas squeezed her hand and looked back in the general direction of where the voice had come from. "Yes." he said aloud.

There was about five seconds of angry/shocked/suspicious talking before it quieted down again.

"Why?" came another voice.

"Because we want to." Isabella said. Like she was going to tell the entire high school that she'd had a massive crush on Phineas basically since she'd first seen him.

There was another burst of talking.

"Like what, a practice round?"

"No." Phineas said. They exchanged a look and soundlessly agreed that was as much clarifying as they would do.

The room erupted into voices again.

Everyone at their table exchanged a nervous look.

Isabella wasn't sure how Phineas was doing, but she felt like she wanted to crawl into a hole and disappear. Then she glanced over, and judging by the look on his face, he felt the same. She squeezed his hand tighter, and he shot her a nervous smile.

When the lunchroom finally quieted down, there came another voice. This one was much more blatant criticism.

"Are you nuts? You can't date someone other than your soulmate!"

"Hey, isn't he the brother of Candace Flynn? Shouldn't he know better?"

Phineas shrunk down in his seat, and Isabella's heart squeezed.

"Hey!" Ferb snapped, making Isabella jump. "What does Candace have to do with any of this?"

"I'm just saying." the person said. "I don't see how she would approve."

"And what business does Candace have in Phineas' decisions?" Isabella burst out, because she was sick of Candace being part of this conversation.

"Candace is like the ultimate soulmate role model!" someone else called. "Shouldn't that be what he's aiming for?"

"Leave my sister out of this!" Phineas screamed suddenly. "She had nothing to do with any of it! I can accept that none of you particularly like this, but you don't get to pick it to pieces by bringing up irrelevant topics!" He grabbed the supplies for their planned invention and shoved them back into his bag, then climbed up. Isabella followed him while the others at the table remained behind, Ferb having a look in his eye that worried Isabella a bit.

After they were out of sight of the lunchroom Phineas sighed and leaned back against a locker.

Isabella leaned next to him and took his hand, rubbing circles on the outside with her thumb. "You okay?" she asked.

"I didn't expect anyone to bring up Candace. That was dumb of me."

"No, it's _jerky_ of _them_ to bring up Candace." Isabella said. "I mean, they may not know her opinion on all of this, but it still bothers you. And besides, they shouldn't bring up something that's irrelevant— as far as they know."

Phineas shot a tiny smile over at her. "Jerky as in beef jerky?"

Isabella groaned. "That was terrible."

Phineas chuckled. "Yeah. It sounded a lot better in my head."

"Um, hey."

Phineas and Isabella both turned to see someone walking up to them. She figured Phineas probably hadn't seen her before, so she started by saying: "Hi, Melissa."

"I, uh, I just wanted to say that was really brave." Melissa said quietly. "You two are really cute."

"Oh." Isabella said. "Wow, thank you Melissa."

Melissa beamed up at Isabella, then scampered off back to the lunchroom.

Phineas give Isabella a surprised look.

"That's Melissa. I mentored her back when she was a Lil' Spark." Isabella explained, smiling a little. "She's a really sweet girl."

"I can tell." Phineas said with a smile of his own. "How can we meet more people like her?"

Isabella chuckled. "I'll look into it."

The next second after the group of people from there lunch table stormed angrily out of the lunchroom, with a bunch of loud noises coming behind them.


	18. Chapter 18

"You didn't punch anyone, did you?" Phineas asked, raising his eyebrows as Ferb approached.

"No, but Buford almost did."

Buford cracked a knuckle to prove his point, and Phineas managed a laugh.

The bell rang above them, and everyone went their separate ways to various classes.

Melissa was a pleasant surprise, but she was also the only one for the rest of the day, as in the rest of the classes everyone seemed to try to stay as far away from Phineas and Isabella as possible. Or at least, if there was anyone else who felt similar to Melissa, they were either too unsure or too intimidated to say anything.

By the end of the day Phineas was glad he didn't have to stay any longer (he'd offered to stay with Isabella for Drama, but she'd refused).

So when he went home he collapsed onto the couch in the living room.

"You ready to do all that again tomorrow?" said Linda from above him.

"I have the 24 hour flu." Phineas said, muffled by the pillow pressing into his face.

"Nice try, sweetheart." Linda patted him gently on the head. "By the way, do you know where Ferb is?" she called over her shoulder as she walked back towards the kitchen.

"He walked to the hardware store after school to get some supplies." Phineas explained, sitting up and stretching his arms over his head in an attempt to relieve some of the tension in his shoulders.

"Do you know when he'll be back?"

"Probably in about an hour, why?"

"I need him to drive to the store pick up some things. His 16th birthday as well as his driver's test are in a couple months and he needs to practice more." she sighed as Phineas walked into the kitchen to continue the conversation. "But I need the food for dinner, so an hour from now is too late."

"I can go to the store." Phineas suggested. "I mean, I don't have to drive, but I can take the wings in the garage. I want to test the new update anyway."

Linda gave him a curious look. "I figured you would have wanted to stay inside today, but I guess if 'wings in the garage' is your way of saying you want to get out of the house, go ahead."

"Uh, okay?" Phineas said in confusion. " What do I need to get?"

Linda handed him a list and some money from the grocery stash in the kitchen drawer, and then Phineas walked into the garage to get the wings.

He'd made the new update to them the previous night, when he'd figured that today would be difficult. The upgrade itself allowed the wearer to be invisible in the sky.

And he was finally able to wear his coat along with the wings— considering it was still January. Once arriving at the actual store he had to turn the invisible feature off so he could actually buy the food he needed. He tucked the shrunken wings in his pocket.

He had made it about a quarter of the way through the list when someone tapped him on the shoulder.

"You're that kid, right?" they asked when he turned around.

"Uh, excuse me?"

Phineas turned to see an phone shoved his face with someone behind the phone recording.

"You're the one who's dating someone other than your soulmate. Like, actually dating them. Can I ask you some questions? I'm really curious."

"Um… no." Phineas said abruptly. He quickly turned and walked off, grabbing a can of kidney beans on his way out of the aisle.

He had about three more things on the list before someone else approached him. "Hey, you're that kid dating that girl! What are you, crazy?"

"Um, excuse me?"

"Yeah, what's wrong with you two?" asked someone else.

"Oh for Pete's sake, leave him alone." came a third voice— this one Phineas recognized.

Katie walked forwards with her hands on her hips. "Don't you weirdos have your own shopping to do?"

The other two people mumbled something incomprehensible to themselves before walking off.

"Thanks, Katie." Phineas said with a grateful smile.

"Need a shopping buddy?" Katie asked.

"Don't you have shopping to do too?"

"Eh, I just came here to buy the candy at the checkout. I don't know if you've noticed my massive sweet tooth, but…"

Phineas thought back to Katie eating about 12 cookies at their Christmas party a couple weeks back. "I've noticed."

They made it through the rest of the list with no more problems— partly because some people were more hesitant to interrupt Katie and Phineas' improvised conversation, and also because Phineas could've sworn he saw Katie shoot people some angry glares, and that was enough to make them back off.

Katie bought several candy bars at the checkout, and Phineas bought his own groceries. He thanked Katie before leaving and slipped the wings on to head home…

Before realizing he was carrying a couple glass containers that would break if dropped— especially from 20,000 feet.

"Okay, slow gliding feature is up next." Phineas muttered to himself as he began the long walk home.

It took about 2 minutes before voices started.

"Hey, is that Phineas Flynn?"

"Mommy look, it's that boy!"

"Look, it's the weirdo!"

"How fast does gossip spread in this town?" Phineas grumbled under his breath before putting up the hood of his coat.

By the time he got home he was irritable and wishing he'd decided to eat dinner a little later as an alternative to that mess he'd just endured.

When he shut the front door behind him he heard a familiar voice coming from the kitchen. He walked inside to see his mother talking… to Candace.

He _so_ did not need this right now.

Both Candace and his mother stopped talking when they noticed him. Phineas set the bags down on the counter with a loud bang and moved to leave the kitchen before he said something he'd regret.

"Phineas?" Candace called after him.

Phineas stopped and turned around.

"Do you think we could talk?" Candace asked hesitantly.

"I'm not sure this is the best time…" Phineas muttered, looking down. He wasn't in the greatest mood and it didn't seem like a good idea to talk to his sister right now.

"Please? I really need to talk to you."

Phineas glanced back at his mom, who nodded. He sighed. "Okay."

"Thank you." Candace pulled out her car keys. "Come on, I'll buy you ice cream."

"If you're trying to bribe me it's not working. It's also January, isn't it a little cold for ice cream?" Phineas said, following her out the door anyway and around to where her car was parked in the garage.

"Do you care?"

"Not enough."

They pulled out of the driveway and Candace turned left towards their favorite place from downtown when they were little.

"So why are we talking?" Phineas asked. "Did you come here because you heard everyone knew about Isabella and I?"

"I mean, Mom was telling me about that in the kitchen, but no, that's not why I came."

Neither of them said anything until they made it to the ice cream place— The Waffle Cone.

Candace got a chocolate waffle cone (ergo the name), and Phineas a strawberry— which despite what you'd think, Candace could not stand.

They both went back outside to the car and Candace drove them to their favorite park from when they were kids.

The cold stung Phineas' eyes, but he didn't really want to talk in the car. They both sat on a bench as it started to snow.

"So, you asked me once what I would do if Jeremy wasn't my soulmate." Candace said eventually.

Phineas glanced over.

"And I gave it some thought… and I think I get why you started dating Isabella." Candace looked over this time. "I'm sorry for how I behaved. It wasn't… helpful, I'm sure. Or appropriate. I think I had this idea in my head about how you— how everyone, really, should feel about soulmates, and I wouldn't budge from it. But still, I'm sorry."

Phineas bit his lip. "Thank you for apologizing." he said quietly.

Candace nodded, and they both turned to look at the park again. "You really like her, huh?" Candace asked.

"I really do."

Candace took a deep breath. "Okay. Then I'm with you on this. From now on, I promise."

"You should probably apologize to Isabella too. I think she'd appreciate it."

"I will."

And once again they were quiet.

"We're people at school jerks?" Candace asked.

"Most of them. But there were our friends, obviously, and there was this one girl named Melissa…"

…

Phineas thought Ferb looked more than a little concerned that night as the two both climbed into their beds, and his theories were confirmed when Ferb spoke up. "Okay, on a scale from 1-10, how horrible was today?"

Phineas sighed as he fell back on the pillow, thinking over everything that had happened, but found himself smiling. "Today was awesome."

 **A/N: Publishing today because tomorrow is my sister's birthday. Expect the next chapter in six days.**


	19. Chapter 19

"You do realize it's still the middle of January?"

"Which means I have less than a month to plan! Come on, Ferb! This is important!"

"I'm not denying that it's important." Ferb leaned back against the workbench in the garage where they were both discussing this. "I just think you're going a little overboard."

Phineas turned from the blueprint that was taking up an entire wall. "Really, you think?"

"Hello?" Candace poked her head out of the door. "Mom said you two needed my help out here?"

"Candace! You know about romance, relatively speaking! What should I do for Isabella for Valentine's Day?"

" _Relatively speaking?_ You wanna think about taking that back, little brother?"

Isabella giggled from where she and Katie were peering through the garage windows.

"Come on, we don't want to know _everything_ he's planning." Isabella whispered, grabbing Katie's arm and dragging her away.

" _I_ do!" Katie protested.

"And I'll tell you all about it on February 15th. The surprise is half the fun, Katie."

"Aww, but—"

"Come on." Isabella said, pulling Katie away from the garage.

"But, but, but…"

The rest of their friends were waiting in Isabella's bedroom when her and Katie walked in.

"Tell us everything!" Millie yelled.

"What were they doing?" Holly asked.

"Is he planning something awesome?" Ginger said.

"Isabella dragged us away before we could even hear." Katie said in annoyance.

There were sounds of disappointment.

"Oh come on, he was planning _something_. That's all you wanted to find out." Isabella said. "I didn't want to ruin the surprise."

"Well _you_ may not want to know exactly what he's doing, but _we_ do." Adyson protested.

"You can find out the day after I do." Isabella said with a smile as she sat on her bed— also occupied by Holly, Ginger, and Millie. "I'm trying to take a little consideration. Especially considering Phineas looked like he was working really hard."

"Oh, damn you for being such a sweet girlfriend." Adyson grumbled.

Isabella rolled her eyes, but she was still smiling. "Don't we have something to do today anyway?"

"Yeah!" Millie exclaimed. "Lil' Sparks tryouts! This is my favorite day of the year!"

"But— can't we figure out what Phineas is doing first?" Holly asked.

Katie sighed. "If she says she doesn't want to know, she's not gonna know, and we aren't either. Come on, let's go babysit some adorable children."

Millie squealed.

Isabella liked Lil' Sparks tryouts too, but her excitement was nowhere near the level that Millie attached to the day. The rest of them often joked that Millie had _become_ a Fireside counselor solely for the Lil' Sparks tryouts day.

The second they got to Fireside Girls headquarters Millie was running up to the front desk for a name tag, and the second she got one, she was running to the designated room where there were dozens of toddlers waiting.

By the time everyone else got one and made it into the room, Millie had made friends with about six of the toddlers.

Isabella walked up to one standing near the back of the room with a woman who must have been her mother. "Hi, I'm Isabella." she said with a smile.

The girl fidgeted with her fingers. "I'm Chrissy." she said quietly.

"Aw, you nervous?" Isabella said, keeping her tone friendly.

"She is a little." said Chrissy's mother.

"I'm sure you'll do fantastic." Isabella said. "You wouldn't believe how nervous I was. My mom had to take me outside because I wouldn't calm down." she chuckled a little in hope to lighten the mood.

It worked, because Chrissy laughed too. "Really?"

"Really." Isabella affirmed. "Just do your best." she leaned closer. "And keep in mind we always take more than we mean to." She winked.

Chrissy giggled again.

In all honesty, the tryouts were a front— it was just that a long boring day of paperwork-filing to get into Lil' Sparks wouldn't be nearly as fun for the kids. So the parents got sent into the other room to fill out that paperwork, and the kids had a competition/play date, leaving the day feeling very accomplished at something.

After all, was anyone ever going to tell a little girl that she couldn't participate in something she'd most likely been dying to do?

As the parents left, Millie jumped up excitedly to the front of the room. "Who's ready for some tryouts?!" she called happily.

There were happy exclamations from the kids. Looking beside her, Isabella noticed Chrissy still looked nervous. She nudged her. "You're going to do great." she whispered.

The day was filled with fun activities. There was the normal patch-earning activities such as the Good Listeners Patch and the Sewing Patch (which came with sewing their uniforms with help from the counselors), with a couple fun ones thrown in for the little kids that didn't really exist, such as the Handshake Patch and the Smile Patch.

"I think someone's gonna need the 'I Just Saw A Cute Boy Patch,'" Ginger said, nudging Isabella.

"Huh?"

Ginger pointed to the front of the room, where Phineas and Ferb were standing.

Isabella rolled her eyes at Ginger (albeit while smiling) and walked over to meet Phineas. "Hey, what are you two doing here?" she asked.

"I got some kind of text from Millie talking about a Milking Patch, so Ferb and I brought some robotic cows." Phineas said.

Isabella glanced behind them to see a couple of artificial bovines. She laughed. "Yeah, Millie takes this day very seriously. One of the kids probably asked about the Milking Patch, so she had to make it happen. Thanks for the cows."

"Oh. Well, can we come see this Milking Patch in action?"

"Sure."

The three walked instead to the sudden 'oohs' and 'ahhs' and 'Look, they really do have cows!' of the children.

Millie ran up with an excited gasp. "You really brought them! Perfect, perfect! Come on, this way!

She grabbed both Phineas and Ferb's arms and dragged them towards the now gathered group of children with a Mille's-Tryout-Day-Adrenaline strength.

MIsabella giggled as the rest of the Fireside Girls joined her and all of them took a break. Millie, along with a little help from Phineas and Ferb was taking over the entire activity and keeping all of the kids entertained with the milking of the robot cows.

"Hey, we can go ask Phineas what he's doing for Valentines Day!" Ginger realized.

"No you cannot!" Isabella exclaimed.

"Oh, come on Isabella, _please?"_ Katie begged.

Isabella hesitated, and Katie made pouty lips. She sighed. "Okay, but you cannot help him! I want to see what he comes up with himself."

"Oh, demanding much?" Ginger said, raising a teasing eyebrow.

"Okay, Isabella has a right to be demanding every now and then." Holly put in. "Besides, I'm not helping him anyway. It's his surprise, he's doing the work."

With that, they all walked off.

Isabella laughed to herself. "Everyone's going to know about that surprise but me."

Everyone returned looking very satisfied.

"You're going to love it Isabella." Katie said happily. "I promise we won't tell you anything."

It was only after they announced who made it in— everyone— that Chrissy came back up to Isabella. "Hey, why was that boy talking about Valentines Day?" she asked.

"He's my boyfriend." Isabella explained. "He's planning a special date."

Chrissy's face lit up. "Are you soulmates?" she asked in excitement.

Isabella shook her head, and now Chrissy looked confused. "We're not a practice round either, though," she cut in before Chrissy could. "We're dating because we like each other. But we're not soulmates."

Chrissy's eyes widened. "You _chose_ to date each other?" she exclaimed.

Isabella nodded.

"Wow, that's like, super romantic!" Chrissy said, sounding like Isabella had flipped her world upside down and she loved it. Then she hopped after her mother.

Children were really amazing.

 **A/N: My school starts again tomorrow, so with homework and projects and other activities I might not be able to publish chapters as often. I don't know how often I will be able to publish them just yet, so we'll see what happens.**


	20. Chapter 20

Phineas was tinkering with the wings in the garage when Ferb walked in.

"Hey, have you seen my screwdriver?" he asked.

Phineas waved Ferb's screwdriver from its location in his hand. "I lost mine, and I need to work on these."

Ferb crossed his arms. "For Pete's sake, you couldn't use it to build yourself a new screwdriver?"

"Oh." Phineas realized. "Sorry, I didn't think of that."

Ferb rolled his eyes. "Here." he tossed Phineas his screwdriver, and Phineas caught it.

"Where was it?" He threw Ferb's back to him.

"I borrowed it." Ferb walked away.

It took Phineas a minute to realize what he said. "Hypocrite!" he called after him.

He turned back to the wings and connected a couple wires on the inside of the control panel. Time to take them out for a test run.

It was actually surprisingly warm for a January day, so Phineas left without his coat. The slow gliding was already tested, but parts for Isabella's Valentine's Day Date we're perfect. And of course, the ever-important snack compartment.

Phineas got home in time for dinner.

And all his parents were asking about was Valentine's Day.

"So how's the planning going?" his father asked.

"Fine."

"What's your favorite detail?" his mother asked.

"The invisible-extendable platform."

Linda rolled her eyes. "Very funny young man."

"What, pretty much everyone else already got it out of me." Phineas said. "The more people I tell, the more likely Isabella's gonna year something prematurely. Besides," he looked down to where he was fidgeting with his hands. "I thought part was really cool."

Ferb groaned and rolled his eyes. "It's cliché."

"See, that's the part you don't understand, Ferb! Sometimes clichés can be sweet."

"I have to go with Phineas on this one." Linda said. "Your father has done many cliché things over the years that I find sweet."

"Ugh." Ferb rolled his eyes. "'Clichés can be sweet.' Coming from the person who hates dinner dates."

"They're unoriginal!"

"Phineas, you do understand what a cliché is, right? Didn't you take Isabella on a dinner date once?"

"Well, yeah but—"

"So who's the hypocrite again?"

"…Shut up."

The three of them laughed, and Phineas crossed his arms. "That was Chez Platypus. That's our restaurant. That's different."

"We have also planned dinner dates for other people."

"Those weren't my dates, and we planned them! That's different."

"Oh, so everyone else can go on unoriginal dates?" Lawrence asked in amusement.

"That's their decision— why are we discussing this?!"

All three of them laughed again.

Phineas huffed and sat back in his seat in annoyance.

After dinner he disappeared into his room to work on his plan once again, and then took a break to sketch out some new ideas while Ferb was using their very-scientifically-advanced microscopes look at the inside of a piece of bark and a squashed bug.

"Yeesh, how can you look at dead insects? It's gross." Phineas said, sticking his tongue out as an afterthought.

"It's fascinating." Ferb said. "I'm learning things about how they work. And I can almost see the quarks… we're going to have to adjust the microscope to be a little better."

"Okay, we can probably do that tomorrow." Phineas said.

"What, does your plan really take that long to plan?"

"No, but I wanna finish this blueprint. For something entirely different," he clarified, before Ferb could say anything else.

"What's it for?"

"A giant hot chocolate hot tub."

There was a beat of silence, and then Ferb burst out laughing. "What?"

Phineas grinned back at him.

"Where did that even come from?" Ferb asked in amazement.

"Dude, I honestly have no idea. I was sitting in Chemistry today and boom, hot chocolate hot tub."

Ferb laughed again. "Okay, well now we have to do that one. There's no other option."

"Naturally." Phineas replied, still grinning. "Aside from the microscope, are we clear tomorrow?"

"We are now. Hot chocolate hot tub. Honestly, Phineas."

…

The next day has Saturday, so they spent the morning building it inside. Isabella heard the plan and said she thought it was the greatest idea ever.

Everyone else showed up later, after the hot tub was already set up outside. They all been told to come in swimsuits, and they knew better then to question Phineas and Ferb at this point.

The hot tub didn't end up lasting that long due to various people drinking the contents— which was both delicious and a little bit gross to think about. And of course, due to the actual tub being made of an edible material— because why not?— the entire creation was gone just after lunch.

So they all went inside and watched a bunch of stupid movies. After everything that had happened lately, it felt good to act like dumb teenagers wasting their Saturday. And with a little help from a familiar alarm clock, everyone got to pick a movie to watch.

Buford picked an action movie, naturally, Baljeet a documentary (that was surprisingly interesting), Holly picked a romcom, Ginger a drama, Isabella a musical-turned-movie, Katie a cartoon, Gretchen managed to convince everyone to watch the entire first season of The Twilight Zone, Addyson (following Gretchen) picked a bunch of short films, Phineas picked a crappy childhood movie full of nostalgia (that they all laughed at), Ferb picked a foreign movie, and in a shocking turn of events, Millie dug around in the basement until she found Linda's collection of horror movies.

No one would be sleeping well that night.

…

Except Phineas, who was used to waking up in the middle of the night, from nightmares or otherwise.

Phineas was up around 3AM once again working on the wings, fixing a bug that had popped up earlier. He finally finished around five and sat on the couch for about fifteen minutes, bored with nothing to do, before he had a realization.

Ooh, what if I adjust the alarm clock so it can move time forward too…

He grabbed the alarm clock quietly off of Ferb's nightstand and set to work. It didn't take long to add an additional function, which he tested by setting it for five hours.

Ferb appeared in front of him. "Phineas, we're going to be late for school!"

"Whoops. That's five days. I'd still like to have my Sunday." Phineas set it backwards.

This time, fifteen-year old Candace stood in front of him.

"MOOOOM!"

"Too far."

Finally, fifteen-year old Ferb reappeared in front of him, still in pajama pants. "Phin? What are you doing with my alarm clock?"

"Avoiding 5 hours of boredom. Come on, let's fix the microscope we never got to."

Fern shrugged and they both moved back up the steps. "Alright. Hey, did you actually finish that plan for Valentine's Day? Can I see the finished product? I really only saw the part I helped you with."

"You will never see it."

"Um, what?"

Phineas fixed him with an angry glare. "I shredded it when I finished. You will only hear about it through details from Isabella and 2nd hand stories from everyone else. No one will ever know the planned plan but me, the planner who planned the planned plan of planliness. It is mine, lost forever in the history of the universe."

Ferb stared at him. "Are you serious?"

Phineas grinned. "Nah, it's upstairs. Come on, I'll show you."

He hopped up the steps as Ferb slowly started after him a little nervously.

A/N: Sorry for the problems with the posting of this chapter.


	21. Chapter 21

" _It was snowing, and it was incredibly cold, even for February."_

Isabella was wearing her coat over her thickest sweatshirt and three pairs of pants— it was dipping into the negatives, but Phineas had said the first part of this had to be outside. Unfortunately, it was almost -5 degrees, so that meant Isabella was putting on many layers. Was the snow really necessary, universe?

" _He showed up hovering outside my window."_

" _Oh my goodness, I did. I forgot all about that."_

A second later there came a knocking, and Isabella turned to the window to see Phineas hovering there and grinning. She couldn't help the laugh that escaped, and she pushed her window open.

Phineas wiggled his eyebrows. "Do you trust me?"

Isabella laughed again. "That requires a magic carpet, you weirdo."

Phineas just grinned bigger. She grabbed his hand and he pulled her outside.

"Woah!" she called in surprise as Phineas swung her around. The wings automatically attached themselves to her.

Isabella looked back at them. "I like the upgrade." she said.

"Thanks. I spent most of the month figuring this out."

Isabella giggled. "Because you overthought everything?"

"Maybe."

The two began to fly slowly up towards the clouds, Isabella shivering a little bit as it got colder. Phineas took her hand in his, and Isabella rubbed both with her other hand.

"Why did it have to be so freakishly cold today?" she asked.

"Sorry. If I had more time I probably could've done something about that."

" _Oh, you definitely could've."_

" _I, um, didn't actually need more time. I was hoping you'd hold my hand because it was cold."_

" _What? You dork!"_

Finally, they flew right through the clouds.

"Oh, wow…" Isabella breathed.

The sky was gorgeous— an array of pinks and reds an oranges and a little purple all coupled by the pale blue winter sky that was rarely seen but was so beautiful.

"Still think sunsets are better than sunrises?" Phineas teased.

"Shhh…" Isabella put a hand over his mouth. "Don't ruin this with words."

Phineas laughed, and they drifted forward slowly for a while as they watched the sunrise.

"Okay, I'm gonna have to interrupt for a minute." he said eventually.

"But—"

"Just hang on."

Isabella sighed. She was curious to see whatever Phineas had next. "Alright. Make it worth it."

He floated them gently across the sky until they were hovering above a cloud. Then he hit a button.

And nothing happened.

"Uh, Phineas?"

"Okay, honest question time. Seriously, do you trust me?" Phineas asked.

Isabella looked over. "Of course."

"Okay." Phineas releases his straps and hit a different button on the wings so they continued to hover in place. Isabella bit her lip a bit, nervous he would fall if he let go, but then he released Isabella's straps and banged his foot on empty air— a platform. There was an invisible platform right above the cloud they were hovering over.

With a little work, they managed to get them both safely sitting on the platform.

"Congratulations. You're now one of the first two humans to sit on a cloud." Phineas said, and Isabella beamed at him.

" _Of course, there was that invention you and Ferb made years later that allowed you to sit on the_ actual _clouds…"_

" _Hey. Don't ruin the sweet sentiment."_

The platform was where they remained until the rest of the colors vanished from the sky, leaving it a cold pale blue.

"Um, Phineas? That was seriously really amazing, but can we go inside now?"

Phineas smiled sympathetically. "Not yet. We have to go where we're spending the rest of the day."

Isabella sighed. "You better friggin fly so fast we warm up from the wind."

"That I can do."

" _And geez, did he mean it. By the time we got there, our hair looked terrible."_

" _Got where?"_

"Isn't Paris the _bad_ kind of cliché?"Isabella asked, though she barely managed to get the words out because the view was beautiful. She was about to run her finger through her tangled hair before out of the wings popped a hairbrush that started doing that for her.

"You thought of everything." Isabella laughed.

"Paris itself is not a bad cliché. Eating dinner at the top of the Eiffel Tower while watching the sunset would be a bad cliché. We're not doing that."

"Geez, Phineas, I think there are about a billion couples who have done that at one point who would disagree with you."

"Yes, well we're not talking about them, are we?"

Isabella laughed. "I shall look forward to never having another dinner date again."

"Good call."

" _Yeah, you held up on that promise."_

" _Okay, we planned all of those, and that other one was for Ferb and Antoinette. So really, I did hold up that promise. Sort of."_

"So." Phineas said as they landed and he retracted the wings. "I thought I'd leave the first half of the day up to you. What do you have in mind? Fancy cheeses? Perusing galleries?"

"Let's go to a bakery."

"Ooh that sounds fantastic at 7 in the morning."

"Ah ah ah, you forgot about the time change. It's almost 2PM.".

"Hmm… did I though?"

Phineas pulled out his phone, which said 7AM.

"Wha— how—"

"You're forgetting the world's greatest alarm clock."

"Oh, of course. I forgot about your time-shifting alarm clock. Silly me. I'm sure no one else would ever forget to take it into account."

"Hey, don't mock the clock. It just gave us a full day in Paris."

"I still want to go to a bakery."

"Deal."

It was much warmer in Paris, so they both took off their coats and two of their three pairs of sweatpants, but as they entered the bakery itself, they both subconsciously pulled their sleeves lower on their wrists at the same time they grabbed hands.

Isabella bought a bunch of macaroons and Phineas decided to buy an entire cake (for lunch, because no one could tell them no).

"Oh, are you two soulmates?" the woman at the counter asked when she noticed their hands.

Phineas looked at Isabella. Neither of them really wanted to lie.

"No." Isabella said, turning back to the woman. "We're not. We just love each other."

She realized as they both walked out of the bakery (leaving the confused woman behind) that neither of them had ever used _that_ 'L' word before. When she glanced at Phineas, he was smiling at her.

" _Aww, you liked her saying that?"_

" _Hold on, that's not the end."_

" _But he absolutely did like it."_

" _I liked it very much. And of course I teased her about it for weeks on end."_

" _Ugh, he did."_

She blushed and looked away, and then Phineas leaned in until Isabella turned back around. Then he kissed her.

" _You what?"_

" _We held hands and smiled at each other."_

" _Absolutely that's what we did."_

They stood there for a very long time, only finally breaking apart to breathe. Their breaths combined in front of them felt hot.

"Wow. We have to do that more often." Isabella breathed, still panting a little to catch her breath. They stood there for another minute.

"Macaroons?" Phineas questioned.

"Macaroons."

They did end up eating something at the Eiffel Tower— well, sort of. They balanced on the platform on the top of the Eiffel Tower, and are the macaroons while invisible (another new wing feature).

" _Why were you invisible?"_

" _No reason."_

"This is probably illegal somehow." Isabella said.

"Why do you think we're invisible?"

Isabella raised an eyebrow— not that anyone could see it. "Ooh, do I have a dangerous boyfriend?"

"You better believe it, baby." Phineas said, in a voice that made Isabella imagine him in a leather jacket while smirking.

"Please _never_ say that again."

Phineas laughed.

It took them awhile to eat all the macaroons due to never being quite sure where they were or if the other was reaching for one at the same time they were. They did eventually finish them, after which Phineas turned off the invisibility and they flew back down to the ground.

They ended up going to the Louvre because Isabella had said she wanted to take a picture of the Mona Lisa— before they both realized that wasn't allowed. They looked around anyway and ended up staying until lunch. Phineas liked the Code of Hammurabi, and Isabella found she liked most of the statues more than the paintings.

Around lunch she dragged Phineas outside and they ate their cake on a curb by the road.

" _As you can imagine, it got everywhere."_

" _We hadn't thought that one through all the way."_

" _That's why you don't eat sweets for lunch."_

" _Excuse me? And who are you to talk?"_

Isabella and Phineas both cleaned themselves up as best they could in the bathroom, but Isabella thought her sweatshirt would be permanently stained with chocolate icing.

" _But you didn't mind that much, 'cause it reminded you of your sweet date?"_

" _Are you kidding? I burned that thing. Besides, I had Phineas to remind me of our sweet date. Over, and over, and over, and over, and ov—"_

" _They get it."_

"Where are we going for dinner?"

"That's special. You'll see."

"So what are we doing until then?"

"I thought we'd just take a walk around Paris. Unless you have something specific in mind?"

"Not really, but that's a pretty big area, we might not be able to hit everything."

"We don't have to. Let's just start around here."

"Okay."

" _Was it pretty?"_

" _It was gorgeous."_

There were a lot of houses and stores that had decorated for the day. Isabella bought Phineas a balloon, and Phineas bought Isabella a rose. They got many smiles and nods from people who probably thought they were soulmates, but no one asked, so they didn't bother to correct anyone.

Eventually, it reached about six in the evening, and Phineas asked if Isabella wanted dinner.

Isabella's stomach started grumbling in response, brought on from eating solely baked sweets and then walking around all day.

Phineas pulled out the wings and opened a side compartment that had a shrunken dinner— Isabella couldn't quite tell what it was yet.

"I'm assuming that's invention-fresh?"

"Well, it's probably cold from sitting in there all day. But that's what alarm clocks are for."

They used the wings to get them up to a high enough point in midair, then used the platform to eat dinner the middle of the clouds and the sunset. She could tell Phineas was staring at the colors.

"Still think sunrises are better than sunsets?" she teased.

Phineas shot her a smirk. "Very funny."

" _It_ was _very funny."_

" _Shush you."_

He returned the dinner to full size, and when Isabella saw what it was, she laughed. "You made pozole?" she asked with a grin.

"You ordered it at Chez Platypus, and I when asked your mom she said it was your favorite meal, so I thought I'd try to make it." he cleared his throat awkwardly. "I had to try like 4 times before I got it right."

"Well that explains the taste," Isabella said, having just tried it.

"Aw, really?"

"No, it's delicious. Try yours."

He did, and shrugged. "Personally, I thought last batch was better."

"Well you can make me more anytime." Isabella said, taking another bite. "But, for the record, they would be dinner dates. Just like this is totally a dinner date."

"I— shut up."

"Aw, Phineas… I'm okay with having a boyfriend who's a little hypocritical sometimes."

Phineas sighed. "It's a love-hate relationship."

Isabella laughed, and then leaned forward and kissed him.

" _Wow, you guys hold hands a_ lot."

They stayed there for a while, before Isabella leaped back and picked up the bowl again. "Sorry, don't want this to get cold."

"You're mean."

Isabella grinned. "Thank you."

They both sat back in silence for a moment, and while Phineas leaned forward to eat Isabella stared at him for a minute. Eventually he looked up. "Isabella?" he asked.

She could see those eyes again. Dark blue eyes that looked like they could the whole world in them. And maybe they did.

"Phineas?" she said.

"Yes?"

"I love you."

Phineas didn't even blink. "I love you too."

They kissed again.

" _Yeeuch!"_

…

"That was the grossest thing I've ever heard!" Hope complained.

"Aww, that was really sweet!" Faith said happily, clapping her hands in excitement. Then she paused and tipped her head. "But why do you and Daddy hold hands so much?"

"We like to." Phineas said with a shrug as Isabella laughed behind her hand.

"Please, enough!" Hope complained, shoving her hands over her ears. "I don't want hear any more! I don't _care_ how Mommy and Daddy got together! Or about the first time they said 'I love you!' I don't care!"

"Mommy, do you think I'll meet someone someday who will love me?" Faith asked in excitement. Her smile faded. "Even if I don't have a name on my wrist?"

"Oh, I think you absolutely will." Isabella said. "Name or not."

Faith, Hope, and Phinney, the baby boy currently sleeping in Isabella's arms, had been born without soulmates. Faith had been constantly worried about that ever since she'd learned what a soulmate was and that everyone else had one. Luckily for her, her Aunt Candace was always willing to throw together many strings of stories for her about boys and girls meeting her and falling head over heels. Isabella was more than sure it would happen someday.

"And that is enough of a bedtime story for tonight." Phineas said, as Isabella and him both rose from their places balanced on the edge of the twin girls beds.

"What? No, I wanna hear more!" Faith complained. "How did Daddy propose? Or did Mommy propose? Ooh, ooh, did you and Daddy ever meet your soulmates?"

Phineas and Isabella exchanged an uneasy glance.

"We'll tell you that story when you're older." Isabella eventually decided, and Phineas nodded.

"Aww…" Faith and Hope both said simultaneously.

Isabella rolled her eyes. "Alright, enough you two. You're going to be exhausted at preschool tomorrow if you don't get some sleep.

"Okay…" both girls sighed, still simultaneously. Phineas and Isabella laughed, and they both gave each girl a kiss before taking Phinney into their bedroom as putting him in his crib.

Isabella crawled into the bed next to Phineas, and had almost drifted off to sleep when Phineas spoke.

"You really think they'll find someone someday? I'm worried about them."

Isabella turned to him in surprise. "Since when?"

Phineas sat up. "I don't know, I just— I don't know."

"Where's this coming from? You're not usually this negative."

"Just… thinking, I guess. The world hasn't changed that much since we met, Izzy."

"Sweetheart, they're being raised by _you._ Even if they don't meet anyone, they'll be okay. They're your kids, after all."

"They're your kids too."

"Yep, and that's where they get their looks from."

"Ouch. You know, you haven't changed much either."

"And I never will. Now let me get my eight hours."

Phineas chuckled, and gave Isabella a kiss on the forehead before laying back down. "Goodnight, Izzy."

The End

 **A/N: Who's up for a soulmate-meeting-sequel? Okay, not really. I won't actually write a sequel unless enough people ask for it. But in case anyone is wondering, Faith, Hope, and Phinney are my actual designs for Phineas and Isabella's kids, and they're the only things in this fanfic that belong to me. I have ones for everyone else too (although not their "soulmate" version), and I might do a fic with all of them someday. But for now, I'd just like to thank you for reading my story! I love you all!**


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